


After Life

by Ballades



Series: Untold Stories of Thedas [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Darkspawn, Deep Roads, Dwarves, Gen, Grey Wardens, Legion of the Dead, Maybe some humor too, Nugs, Red Lyrium, The Stone - Freeform, action adventure, all the nugs, dwarf squad, now with art!, the gangue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 21:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3826054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballades/pseuds/Ballades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Legion of the Dead squad stumbles upon a nefarious darkspawn plot and has to fix things.  Add some Grey Wardens, red lyrium, a talking darkspawn, and the gangue.  Shake, don't stir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
>   
> Art by [dgcakes](http://dgcakes.tumblr.com). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am again with something new and experimental. Please bear with all my missteps as I change genre, style and storytelling methods (who am I kidding, I don't know what I'm doing).

The dead didn’t laugh.

That was wrong, of course. The dead laughed plenty. They laughed in battle to the song of swords swinging, to the percussive twangs of bowstrings snapping in time, to the dull crush of armor and bone crumpling. They laughed as they worked amidst the sound of glass vials shattering, inhaling the poisonous fumes through open, jeering mouths, snorting them out through wide-flared nostrils. They laughed as they killed, keeping Orzammar’s perimeter clear of darkspawn.

Gwydd was laughing, that crazy fucker. Kenric couldn’t understand how he could do it, wasn’t he winded enough just from wielding his axe? But no, Gwydd was almost hysterical as he waded into clumps of darkspawn two and three large, his wickedly sharp greataxe describing black-splashed crescents, the spike on the back half descending, savage, into bodies. When he was like that nothing could touch him, so Kenric left him alone, fell in shoulder to shoulder with Rith, whose left side always needed watching.

“That crazy fucker,” Rith gasped as he laid his blades against a genlock’s neck. Kenric stepped aside deftly to avoid an elbow in his face, let his shield snap forward to intersect with the genlock’s upward stab. Blood fountained as Rith’s weapons cut deep, and the two dwarves spun away perfectly in sync, hiding eyes and mouths from the taint.

“Falla!” Gwydd hollered, just as a black-feathered arrow drilled into the eye socket of the darkspawn he was fighting. He began laughing again, his deep voice booming into the air, audible over the sounds of violence. A second arrow whipped past him to bury itself in the throat of a hurlock. “Never mind! Thank you!”

Kenric heard Falla’s voice faintly through his helmet. “Least you still remember your manners!”

“What?” Gwydd shouted back rudely, pausing to set a booted foot against a dead genlock’s face. He yanked his blade out of its head. The genlock’s legs twitched.

Kenric looked around, saw that the darkspawn were all dead or dying. The group hadn’t been particularly large, only nine or so, and his squad had been together long enough, was skilled enough, to make short work of them. Kenric shook his head to clear it of the battle haze and watched as Gwydd pulled a longknife from the sheath at his belt. The other dwarf knelt down, and in two strokes severed the darkspawn’s head from its shoulders. He twisted around, peering behind him; Kenric moved out of the way.

Gwydd opened his mouth. “Falla, where the fuck?!” 

“DO IT!” came the response, screamed out from behind. “Twenty-one in a row, hit me!”

Gwydd got the toe of his boot underneath the head and rolled it onto the flat of his axe. Carefully he maneuvered it up to waist height, and then with a bark of laughter, he took two running steps, heaving the head high in a tall arc.

An arrow flashed, intercepted the head partway through its trajectory, felling it. “Did I get it?” Falla asked. Her boots scraped against the flagstones as she trotted up to the rest of the squad.

“Aye,” Gwydd said, squinting. “Right in the forehead again.” The dark-haired dwarf sighed. “By the Stone, woman.”

Falla laughed, mouth open, her small snub nose wrinkling. The sound of it was warm and chesty. “Twenty-one times this has happened, and you haven’t learned your lesson yet.”

Rith grinned, pulling his helm off, revealing close-cropped sandy hair. He held up one of his knives to inspect its length. “You know what they say about ‘zerker intelligence.”

“Fuck if I know,” Gwydd said immediately, and the three of them snickered.

Kenric finished running his thumbs along the edge of his shield, then hooked it onto his harness. “Well friends, it looks like the Legion big-shots will be seeing our sorry mugs again. Let’s salvage and head back.”

“Looking forward to that roast nug, captain?” Falla asked him as she approached two of the genlock bodies. “We could just as easily stay out here, but if you’re longing for the sweet taste of burnt rodent...”

Kenric made a face. “Don’t even, Falla. I know it’s you who likes it.”

She giggled as her search turned up nothing. Setting the point of her bow on the road, she unstrung it in one practiced motion. “It’s disgusting shit, all stringy-like. Gwydd’s eating my share tonight.”

Gwydd turned a shade paler, then mimicked sticking his finger down his throat.

Falla narrowed her eyes. “Twenty-one times, Gwydd. Twenty-one times.”

Kenric grinned at Gwydd’s obvious disgust. “Twenty-one times, Gwydd, she’s right.”

“Ugh,” the other dwarf said, and gagged. 

Rith patted Gwydd mock-sympathetically on the shoulder, a patronizing look on his freckled face. “This could all stop, Gwydd. You could make this all stop by _not doing the thing._ Falla isn’t going to miss any time soon. Ancestors, even if she did, she’d have a second arrow on the way in half a blink, and that one wouldn’t miss.”

“A full blink. She wouldn’t be able to draw it that far back in half.” 

“Fine, yes. A full blink. Two, even.” Rith sighed again; Kenric coughed to cover his snort of laughter. “Anyway, you could give up on seeing Falla miss. Or admit you love roast nug.”

A cackle from Falla as she walked the battlefield, retrieving arrows. 

“What?” Rith asked Gwydd innocently, ignoring his fearsome scowl. “It’s the only logical conclusion. You know Falla isn’t going to miss. She makes you eat her portion of nug every time. Therefore you must be doing this so you can get extra nug.”

“Sometimes,” Falla said cheerfully, walking up to them with a handful of arrows, “it’s even stewed deepstalker. Yum!”

Kenric couldn’t help it; he let out a guffaw. “Enough! Allow Gwydd to make his own poor decisions. He’s been better fed than the rest of us, at least.”

“Debatable.” Falla pursed her lips, sticking them out, and smirked. She then joined Rith in rolling the bodies into the deep lava channel on one side of the road. Kenric sat to clean his sword, listening to the background music of dead darkspawn being incinerated. First the thud as the corpse hit the crust of the lava. Then the long hissing crackle as flesh and blood caught fire, followed by various pops as soft, squishy bits exploded.

At length he stood, balling the soiled cloth in his gloved hand. “Finish up,” he ordered as he walked to the edge of the road. The cloth spread as it fell, oily red and black blotches forming a curious pattern as the lightweight material drifted through shifting thermals. Kenric observed it for a moment before turning his attention back to his crew. “Form up, we’re going.”

The group fell into pace easily with Kenric and Rith in the front, Gwydd and Falla in the back. They hadn’t ranged far into the Deep Roads on this trip; all the caches had been full and unmarked when they sortied, leaving no distractions on the way back to base camp. As they walked Falla hummed tunelessly to herself. Kenric recalled a time when that had been annoying - years, it might have been years, this squad was remarkably long-lived - but now it was merely something Falla did, one more ambient noise to add to the clanks of armor, the tramps of heavily booted feet.

“Double time it,” Kenric called out when he sensed the group’s cohesiveness beginning to fray. Out here on the front lines the mind couldn’t wander. Constant vigilance was required to stay alive, constant monitoring of sounds, of flickering shadows on the walls, even of the smell. Darkspawn in great enough numbers had their own special stench, and Kenric knew from experience that catching a whiff of it could prevent unnecessary casualties among his men. An interesting notion, unnecessary casualties. That Kenric would want to delay his squad’s second death was ironic to him, but he had a good team, and they did better work on their feet and fighting than on the ground, being eaten. He’d been captain to a couple of other squads in the past, and it was only through dumb luck and occasional flashes of real leadership that he’d survived, along with a few others, and made it this far. This particular group was his best yet, and admittedly his favorite, though he wasn’t supposed to have favorites. Kenric was determined to lead them for a little while longer.

The four of them shifted smoothly to a dog trot, and Kenric could feel their focus return, feel their attention sharpen. For a time nothing was said. They passed by a broken statue of Paragon Branka, the head of her hammer lying cracked and crumbling at the base of the pedestal. Her features remained, though there were chips missing in her face and her hair. Not too far from her, perhaps only another ten minutes, was a supply cache, the second of two Kenric had inspected on the way out.

It was empty when they arrived. Puzzled, Kenric called a halt, going over to inspect the crate. “No sigil,” he muttered after he pressed the correct parts of the lid, opening the box.

“Maybe someone forgot?” Gwydd suggested as he leaned on the long haft of his axe.

“It’s possible,” Kenric allowed. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened, but it still bears a report. Requisitions will be up our asses if things aren’t logged exactly right.” Kenric fitted the lid back onto the crate, pushed on it until he heard the latches clicking. “Back on your feet, lads. And lass. Roast nug awaits us, and Gwydd can’t wait to dig in.”

“Real funny, captain,” Gwydd said, sarcastic. “Real funny.”

Kenric sidled up to him, nudged his shoulder. “Rith made a convincing argument. I think he’s right about you liking it.” Kenric half-shrugged, his left shoulder and hand lifting slightly. “Think about it, Gwydd. There are so many possibilities. Roast nug. Nug jerky. Stewed nug.”

“Deep fried nug,” piped Falla.

“Sous-vide nug,” said Rith, and as one, heads turned. Their stares were flat. “What?” Rith protested. “It’s...something that could be done.”

Kenric shook his head, motioning for his squad to get back into formation. “What’s _soo veed?_ ” Gwydd asked, almost plaintive, as they began moving again.

No one bothered to answer him.


	2. Chapter 2

Their meal was simple as expected, a stew of root vegetables with a side of mystery meat, roasted beyond recognition. Falla and the boys had come into the cantonment, washed their hands, and fallen upon the hot food, devouring the first serving in large gulps, concerned only with putting something of substance into their stomachs. 

“Here,” Falla said to Gwydd after taking a bite of the meat and making a face. “Gimme your stew.”

Stoneware scraped across wood as Gwydd pushed his bowl over. Falla reached for it, set it next to her own bowl, and picked up another slice of cave mushroom bread. 

“Pass the salt, Rith?”

Rith looked up from his bowl, set his fingers against the salt well. With a graceful flick of his wrist he sent it skittering across the slats of the table. Falla stopped its slide, holding her palm open, the rounded rim of the well cool and smooth against her skin. “How many pinches?”

Rith swallowed and gave her a shy smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Two. And a splash of ghost pepper oil, for a bit of excitement.”

Four pinches, divided neatly between the two bowls; two shakes, clear oil beading atop the surface of the stew. Falla put her spoon in and stirred, then tasted. “Perfect, Rith. How do you do that?”

He said nothing, only shrugged and smiled again. “I just know, I guess.”

“Can you think of anything to improve this meat?” Kenric asked.

“Aside from putting it in the stew, no. Not much.” Rith exhaled long, a sad sound. “If only I could get at the larder list.”

Falla smiled, made a little noise of amusement. “We’d never get you out of the kitchen if you did. What do the dead need with good food anyway? They’ve written us off over there.”

“I can still _taste_ things,” the fair-haired dwarf said, crossing his arms. “We aren’t second dead yet. With food like this waiting for us, though…”

“Enough mushroom brew and you’ll forget about the flavor soon enough.” Gwydd barked a laugh, raising his tankard to his lips.

Falla shuddered. The taste of mushroom beer was equal parts loathsome and nausea-inducing. Her own tankard held only water, drawn from the Orzammar-stamped barrels that were delivered every few days. It might have carried some odd notes every so often, but it was altogether better and more healthy than the alternative. Falla was sure that it had made Gwydd’s tastebuds wither and die, which would explain the ease with which he ate whatever poor animal or animals graced their plates at mealtime.

She finished her bowl of stew, moved onto the second without fanfare, put it away while ignoring the tightness of her belly. Hot food was a luxury only experienced in base camp, so Falla weathered the discomfort, chewed and swallowed methodically, scraped her spoon around the bottom of the bowl before letting it rattle against the side. She sat back then, sighing, a hand splayed over her midsection as she watched the rest of the squad eat.

After a minute she rose to her feet, gathered up her empty crockery, and brought it back to the kitchen, darkened now that the cook had finished his duties. A bath, she thought, a bath would be good to wash away the smell of singed darkspawn that clung doggedly to skin and leather and hair. She headed in the direction of the bunks, calloused fingers loosening ties and buckles as she went.

There were fewer legionnaires than she expected when she arrived. Falla moved as quietly as she could through the dim, high-ceilinged room, rows of beds stretching away from her. Normally there were several squads in the base camp at any given time, but the beds to either side of their section were empty, as were the ones adjacent, just rectangular stone coffins already fitted with pale shrouds, awaiting bodies inside the cave-like walls of the quarters.

Falla shrugged, removed her breastplate. Kenric had brought them in between shift changes, and it was possible that the other squads were out. Still, the bunks were unusually silent, free from the rasping snores of men relaxed enough to sleep deeply, lacking the rustle of bedsheets as bodies turned over. Falla laid her armor out piece by piece on the bed, feeling the silence press upon her, heavier without the pillars of her comrades to help bear its weight.

She went to wash up, selecting the trough with the hottest water in it, dunking her head in to wet her short, uneven hair, scrubbing it and herself vigorously with soap and a rag until her skin was stripped and squeaky. She caught her reflection when she leaned over to drain the water, paused for a second as she beheld herself, rippling and distorted amongst scum and bubbles. Falla touched her tattoos, her own fingertips warm and soft on her cheek, tendrils of her water-darkened hair cool against the back of her hand. She had never been pretty.

“Admiring yourself again?”

Falla reached into the water and pulled the stopper. Gurgles echoed off the hard stone of the chamber. “Better than looking at you, Gwydd.”

The other dwarf walked over, his gait direct, rolling just a little because of his bulk. He picked up Falla’s towel and held it out. She took it, wrapping it around herself, looking into his eyes, a half-smile on her face.

Gwydd took up her soap and moved off to a different trough. “Rith’s at the training ground.”

“And Kenric?” Her towel was rough against her skin as she tucked it in tight.

“Paperwork, what else?” 

“Thanks.” 

She slapped Gwydd lightly on the shoulder as she passed. From him, a grunt, then a splash as he dunked a rag into the water. Falla exited to the strains of a dwarvish drinking song, grumbled out in Gwydd’s deep bass.

She returned to her bunk, toweled off her hair, stood naked in the room amidst sleeping men and got dressed, her shirt sibilant against her skin as it settled over her. She hopped into her breeches, the leather slapping smartly, then pulled on socks and boots. Falla felt the rub of damp skin against cloth as she began making her way towards the training grounds, but by the time she reached them both her skin and her clothing had dried. Occasionally, a drop of water would fall from the ends of her hair into the collar of her tunic; she shivered then, reaching up, squeezing the ends, wringing them out.

The training arena was high-ceilinged as well, large and circular, the floor deep sand. Rith was at one end, a black recurve bow in hand, and Falla could see that his targets were studded with arrows. He was in the midst of drawing as she approached, his right elbow straight back, dark blue eyes narrowed, intent. She waited until he let the arrow fly, traced its trajectory with her eyes until it thudded into the straw mat that served as a target.

“You’re getting a lot better,” she said to him, flashing him a smile.

“Thanks.” There were arrows in the sand before him; he plucked one out, shook fine grains off the tip, nocked and drew. It hit the target a foot away from the first, farther out. “Or not.”

Falla smiled, placed light fingertips on the bow, his arm, his shoulder, adjusting his form. “You just have to center and focus.”

His eyes flicked to the side, accusatory. “You’re joking.” 

Rith sighted and released. The arrow flew unerringly towards the wall, splitting on impact. He sighed, disappointed, and took up another arrow.

She laughed affectionately. “Try it again, Rith. Center and focus, exhale and shoot.” Falla got around behind him, curled a hand around his, touched his other to guide his draw arm back, aligning it. 

“Listen to me, Rith. Let all this fall away. Center yourself. Focus.”

Falla felt the pull of the bowstring as if she were part of his body. Her breath gusted out, hit the skin of his neck, rebounded back at her, misty and tepid. 

“Exhale,” she whispered. 

The plates of Rith’s armor, smooth and hard against her breasts, shifted with the contraction of his ribs. The decreasing pressure of her fingers on his told him when to let go.

This time, the arrow struck the spiral of straw dead in the center.

Falla took two steps back, disengaging from Rith. For a long moment they just looked at each other, brown eyes on blue. There were many things she wanted to say, she knew, and all of them would never pass her lips, would never ride the zephyr of her breath into the space between them.

“That was an excellent shot.”

“Thank you.” Rith lowered the bow until the point of it ground into the sand. “A good one to end with.”

She nodded. “Aye, but you still have two arrows left.”

“They’re all yours.” He angled the bow towards her, inclined his head. Falla hefted it, tossing it shallowly in her hand until the grip felt right, then tugged an arrow out of the sand. Clear mind, nocked arrow, silken draw, solid strength, to the tooth and release - and the arrow nestled home next to Rith’s, the two points lodged in the same hole, shafts quivering.

Falla took a step to her left and repeated the action, and the stuffed gunny sack hanging from the ceiling swung wildly on its tether, describing a wobbly parabola with an arrow skewering it clear through. Satisfied, she unstrung the bow and returned it to the weapons rack.

“Knife work?” Rith asked her once the bow had been stored.

“No, not tonight. I’m in fresh clothes. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow then. I suppose it’s my turn to get clean.”

Her mouth quirked up at the corners. “You had better. Gwydd has a head start on you.”

“Later, Falla.”

“Later, Rith.”

She made the walk back to the bunks with arms folded over her chest, mood contemplative, stopping briefly to brush her teeth, steadfastly ignoring Rith’s reflection in the mirror. He was slenderer than most dwarven males, broad shouldered but not thick of waist, the muscles of his upper body lean and sleek. Falla closed her eyes and spat, rinsed out her mouth, spat again. 

Gwydd was already in bed when she got back, his jet hair blending in with the shadows creeping down from the wall, encroaching on his pillow. Falla regarded him fondly for a moment before she sat on her bed and swiveled herself into it.

She was almost asleep when she heard Kenric’s footsteps approaching. “Cap’n,” she greeted him drowsily, one hand fluttering up in a salute.

Kenric sounded almost gentle. “Get some rest, Falla. No break for us this time, we’re back on patrol once we’re all awake.”

“Yes, ser,” she murmured, and closed her eyes. 

The last thing she heard before succumbing to the blackness of sleep was the song of the Stone, faint and sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

Kenric had never thought of dwarves as canoodlers, but there it was: Gwydd and Rith, heads bent together, sitting side by side so closely that their arms and legs were a single unbroken line, inspecting weapons.

“Ugh, I think this one’s nicked now.” Rith held up a dagger and squinted at it, then pulled his gauntlet off and ran a forefinger down the blade.

Gwydd grunted his laugh. “S’what happens when you try to slice through spiked armor. Surprised you didn’t break that one clean in half.”

“Fine dwarven crafts, direct from Orzammar. High tier smith caste work is worth it.” Rith rummaged around in his pack, producing a stone after a few moments. He frowned, rubbing his fingers across the surface, feeling the grit. He must have found it unsatisfactory; without fanfare, he leaned over and grabbed Gwydd’s stone, forcing the other dwarf to put an arm out lest he fall.

Gwydd said nothing, only handed over Kenric’s sword. “Might as well do this one too, since you’ve got my stones.”

“Pretty sure that’s Falla,” Rith replied instantly, not looking up from his work.

“Then she’s got a quad,” Gwydd said, and cackled.

Kenric stood watch next to Falla, smirking at the exchange. “Like a pair of mated tezpadam you two are.” He tipped his head towards Falla, addressing her. “Soldier, what do you call two Legionnaires in a relationship?”

“Ser! Necrophiliacs, ser!”

His laughter burst out, loud and hearty. “Necrophiliacs!” Kenric managed, doubling over, clutching at his stomach. Falla joined him, and soon the two of them were holding each other up, shaking. “Necrophiliacs!” Kenric wheezed. “That’s a good one.”

Falla snickered, then inhaled long to calm herself. “Dead jokes never get boring, do they?”

“What is dead may never die. Long live bad jokes.”

“You read that in a book somewhere, captain?”

“Maybe.” Kenric folded his arms back over his chest, resuming his position. He let his teeth show when he grinned.

“Necrophiliacs?” Gwydd asked then, tapping a knuckle against Kenric’s shield, late on the uptake as usual.

Rith’s reply was spoken slowly, pedantic almost, his expression blase. “Well Gwydd, when one loves a dead body very much -”

“I get it, I get it!” Gwydd snapped. “That’s nasty, Falla.”

“- and one wants to show that love in a physical way -”

“Rith!” Gwydd shoved the other dwarf away. 

Rith hit the ground laughing, curling himself into a ball, the whetstone and knife held tightly in his hands. “You’re killin’ me, Gwydd!” he gasped, then dissolved into laughter all over again. Falla covered her eyes, giggling behind lips clamped shut.

Kenric allowed them to tire themselves out before speaking. “Falla, check munitions, if you would. Gwydd, you best be done with that shield. You too, Rith, we should be moving out soon. Isn’t safe for us here this close to the trenches.”

“What’s _safe_ , Captain?” Falla looked up from rummaging around in her pack. Kenric could hear the clinking of glass vials. “You gettin’ soft on us? And we have two greasers, a fire bomb, and some quiet death.”

“Soft? Ancestors, no. I just can’t be bothered to send you back to the Stone all the way out here. What a pain in the ass. Get your arrows coated with some of the quiet death. I’ve got a feeling that group was not the only one around here.” 

He accepted his shield from Gwydd, gave it a quick once-over before hooking it onto its harness. “Stay ready, lads. And lass. Helms on.”

They were less than a hundred paces out when Kenric felt the first stirrings of the earth beneath his boots. As one the four of them halted, waited for the next vibration. It came, more strongly this time.

“Do you…?” Gwydd started.

“Yeah,” Kenric said grimly, unlimbering his shield, slipping his arm into the loops. Darkspawn were notorious tunnelers; the crumbling infrastructure of the Deep Roads were testament to that. Aside from the perimeter around Orzammar, every section of the Deep Roads that Kenric had seen featured some kind of destroyed masonry or collapsed structure, victims of large, crude hammers, or simply hundreds of sets of fingernails scrabbling.

The tremor came again, and this time Kenric heard the distinct crack of a hammer against stone. “There,” he said, pointing to their right, where some fifty paces away was an intersection. The left side was impassable, the vaulted ceiling of the tunnel caved in. Lava flows surrounded the road on both sides here, oozing black-crusted underneath the arched roadway.

Another cracking sound, louder still. Kenric began to count them, tallying three.

At four, Rith loosened his knives in their scabbards. At five, Falla adjusted her studded leather helm and began humming. At six, Kenric unsheathed his sword, the silver length of it gleaming dark orange with reflected lava light.

Seven, and Gwydd began laughing, the haft of his axe bouncing lightly on his shoulder.

One more resounding crack, the loudest of them all, and partway down the right path the far wall bulged, protruded outward, the large stones weeping crushed mortar. “Falla,” Kenric muttered, watching the wall’s integrity deteriorate. “Full draw. Quiet death. Rith, greaser and fire bomb, give us space. Gwydd, battering ram with me. Got it? Make them come through to us.”

“Ser!” they chorused.

Stone met falling stone with a grating bass rumble. From the blackness of the hole an ogre emerged, broken-fanged mouth open in an echoing roar, ducking its head down so that twisted horns wouldn’t catch. For a moment Kenric held still, watched genlocks and hurlocks scurry into the light, their twitchy, vaguely animalistic way of moving jarring to his sensibilities. There were a dozen at least. A dozen, and an ogre.

Out of the corner of his eye Kenric saw Rith reach into Falla’s pack and withdraw two stoppered beakers.

The ogre caught sight of them then, its eyes narrowing to slits.

“Ah, shit,” Gwydd said, moving forward with Kenric in lockstep, the two of them forming the bulwark of the defense. The ogre lurched into a shambling run, roaring again, and Kenric could feel every thunderous footfall all the way up to his knees. The lesser darkspawn surged around the ogre, sprinting forward, a wave of sharp, overlarge teeth inside inhuman, twisted faces.

“Ten paces!” Kenric tossed back behind him, settling his shield in the front, the length of his sword held sweetly against the rim of it. Gwydd began laughing again, and Kenric could see the manic light of battle kindling in the other dwarf’s eyes, mirrored in the sparkling flashes that were a result of him twirling the haft of his greataxe in his hands.

Rith’s throw was perfectly calculated, the tinkling of glass and the great whoosh of ignition taking the darkspawn by surprise as they charged headlong into it. Fire flowered outward explosively, spraying bright liquid drops of panic among the clustered darkspawn. Another beaker arced into their midst, shattered into viscous, oily bits. Darkspawn shrieked and scattered as the augmented flames licked up armored legs, ate greedily at blighted flesh. 

Kenric grinned gleefully as the fire swallowed the accelerant, breathed deep when the heat wave struck him, a tight, stinging slap pushing into the slit of his visor. 

The ogre halted its advance, and at that moment Falla’s breath gusted out of her, timed with the release of the bowstring.

The broad-headed, black-shafted arrow hurtled through the air in a blink, rifled dead center into the ogre’s eye, punching clear through its skull. The ogre staggered at the impact, screaming, its eye a gelatinous, gaping ruin, inky blood fountaining from its head, front and back. A flinch rippled through the lesser darkspawn as the ogre dropped its hammer and toppled, limbs jerking and scything in the throes of death.

“Ancestors!” Kenric bellowed, closing with the front ranks as they came through the fire. The first hurlock fell, an arrow embedded in its forehead, snapping its head back. Kenric charged through the hole it made, shield up, sword chopping left and right. Everything else melted away then as battle clarity took over, gripped Kenric’s mind and drew his consciousness down to a single hard focus. A brutal swing downwards, cleaving a genlock near in two; a savage blow using his shield, the edge of it crushing an unprotected throat. Through it all Gwydd laughed, blocking with the haft of his axe, using the butt of it like a spear, keeping the space around his body free with with circular swoops.

Kenric slashed at faces and bellies, working coolly around the thwip thwip of Falla’s arrows speeding past. He dug his feet in, angling his shield low, and bulled into a genlock, sending it scraping across stone and into open, shimmering air. He whirled before the body hit the lava, sword rattling in his hand when it clashed against a hurlock blade, and narrowly missed having his head taken off by the edge of Gwydd’s axe when it sank into the darkspawn’s stomach.

“For fuck’s sake, Gwydd!” Kenric yelled, just as Rith appeared, deceptively light-footed in his plate, spinning past a genlock’s guard to bury dual knives hilt-deep into its soft places. 

“Sorry, Captain!” Gwydd yelled back, despite being mere feet away. He yanked his blade out of the hurlock’s stomach, turned a genlock’s sword on the haft of his axe. In a smooth, practiced motion Gwydd countered, releasing the throat of the axe, allowing the long handle of the weapon to pivot around the pressure of the hit. He stepped to the side, free hand closing around the knob; shoulder and hip swiveled forward, and the butt of the axe leapt forth, smashing into the genlock’s maxillae, sending jagged, broken bone into its brain.

Four left; the squad dispatched them easily with knife and arrow. Kenric let his shield arm slacken as he waited to regain his breath. “Well done, lads and lass,” he said eventually, once his heartbeat was somewhat normal again. “No injuries? No blood?”

“No.” Gwydd shook his head and took off his helmet. His black hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. “Think we’re all clear. Rith?”

Rith was looking at one of his knives forlornly. “I’m fine.” A gusty sigh. “I just fixed this, too.”

“No caches around, Rith, you’ll have to make do.” Kenric surveyed the carnage, found nothing of interest except for the ogre’s warhammer, an overly large block of metal, simply wrought, smooth at each end. It had clearly been designed for crushing and maiming. 

A curious thing, he thought. Ogres would wear mismatched, patchwork armor, and one of their hobbies was to squeeze dwarves into a bloody pulp. However, they always relied on the brute force administered through their fists. In all his years in the Deep Roads, Kenric had never seen one use a weapon.

He picked his way over to the body, avoiding the spreading pools of tainted blood. Behind him, Falla and Gwydd were checking the carcasses methodically. “Here, Rith,” Falla said, unsheathing a curved dagger and holding it up. “Looks like this came off of one of our boys. Bet it’d be useful.”

Kenric approached the hammer as Rith and Falla talked, and prodded it with a foot. It was solid steel, too unbalanced and unwieldy to be used by any dwarf. He was about to turn away when the smith’s stamp caught his eye. Frowning, he crouched next to the hammer, grasping the wrapped handle, and used two hands to flip it over to better see the mark.

He couldn’t recognize it. Kenric had been educated in the royal palace alongside the other Aeducan cousins, had been taught by the best tutors and the most knowledgeable Shapers, had been to the Shaperate many a time for his own research prior to becoming a Legionnaire, and still he did not recognize the mark stamped into the metal. And then there was something else...

“There’s lyrium inside it,” Falla said, hushed, leaning over his shoulder.

“Is there?” Kenric asked, giving her a sidelong glance. Falla had, in his experience, never been wrong about the location of lyrium nodes buried under feet of stone, and her sense of the gangue was the strongest and most finely honed of them all. Though the tattoos on her face proclaimed her as casteless, Kenric strongly suspected that she had miner caste blood in her.

Falla nodded, pulling off her helm. “Touch it, Kenric. You’ll see.”

Kenric pulled off his gauntlet and scratched at his short brown beard for a second before placing a cautious fingertip on the steel. Instantly the metal flared blue-white, intricate designs on the surface of the weapon revealing themselves. Kenric recoiled, gasping, and in his mind he heard the faintest threads of music.

“Thought so,” Falla said dreamily, her eyes half-closed, hands held out towards the hammer. The metal remained cold and dull when she pressed her fingers to it. “Looks like it’ll only light for you. Wonder why?”

Kenric stood, let Falla’s question dissolve into the air. He was feeling immensely discomforted over the hammer, his gut churning with foreboding. An unknown smith mark; lyrium forged into the metal in a way he’d never seen; artifice that responded only to his touch, likely as a result of his blood. It was, to say the least, mysterious and troubling.

He made the decision right then and there to investigate. “Finish up, everyone,” he ordered, sticking his hand back into his gauntlet. “We’re going to resupply, and go adventuring.”

“Whee!” Rith said softly, sarcastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your feedback! It's quite late at night and I probably have missed something, but I got excited and wanted to post. Again, this is a far departure from comfortable, so if something doesn't work for you, don't hesitate to tell me.


	4. Chapter 4

The tunnel was surprisingly large, and oppressively hot.

Kenric led the way, the stick of his glow lantern held parallel against his forearm. The enchanted stone dangling from the chain gave off a white light, the lyrium rune inside it shining strongly even diffused through glass. It swung as Kenric walked, sending light splashing like water up and over the roughly dug walls, the sloped floor.

It was patently obvious that the darkspawn had been digging for some time. Their stench pervaded the air, mixed in with the wet darkness of earth and the dry sift of rock. With the passage open behind them there was at least some airflow, and as they descended Falla thanked the ancestors that the shaft was as wide as it was. Bodies in various states of decay or consumption littered the floor, and had the tunnel been any more narrow the weighty press of near-stagnant air combined with the foulness of dead darkspawn would have struck them all down.

But with the staid practicality of the dwarves, they continued on.

Behind Kenric was Rith, then Falla herself. Gwydd brought up the rear, another glow lantern held atop his shoulder. They walked in silence, the tramp of their boots muffled against the packed earth, each of them quiet with discomfort. Every now and then they passed side tunnels that had been dug out and filled in, but the main shaft was straight and purposefully excavated, disturbingly so. Darkspawn outside of a Blight were almost never so single-minded in focus; it had only been ten years or so since the last one, according to the Shapers, and it was too soon for another to start.

Falla supposed that the Shapers could be wrong. Nothing was ever set in stone but the ways of the dwarves themselves, after all, with the never-ending games of subterfuge and one-upsmanship, the not-so-secret surface trade that kept Orzammar running, the underpinnings of the Carta oiling the great, rusty gears of dwarven civilization. Those gears were slow to turn and even slower to change direction, and anyone who fell between the teeth of the cogs and couldn't get out in time would be flattened to death.

As a Legionnaire Falla was not supposed to think about anything that had come before her first death, was supposed to have locked it away, cut it out, left it behind. Realistically she thought of her former life fairly often, usually in the small spaces of calm between skirmishes, typically before sleep. She had come to the Legion some time ago; she wasn't sure how long. Time was little more than an abstraction in the constant stream of activity that marked dwarven life. Without any changes in atmosphere or light levels underground, there were no days or nights like the surfacers counted. Falla wasn't even sure what those words truly meant. There was only the feeling of continuous flow, the idea that everyone was growing older, and the rumblings of the earth that came seldomly, without rhyme or reason.

Time was even more immaterial for a Legionnaire. They were expected to die, and die again, the amount of time spent between deaths mattering little as long as darkspawn heads were forcibly removed from darkspawn shoulders. Falla knew that in other squads that philosophy lent itself to a careless attitude; Orzammar would not want for Legionnaires so long as the worst among them could be sent away and never heard from again. And, as Falla knew, the worst numbered many. She was grateful that she had been assigned to a squad like hers, without a murderer or rapist among them, and with a leader like Kenric, whose longevity in the ranks was somewhat storied.

Whether it was storied because of his tactical prowess and knack for emerging victorious and unscathed, or whether it was storied because of the commonly-held belief that Kenric was an Aeducan, she didn't know. Probably both, although no one had ever dared ask Kenric about his bloodline. Falla was not well-versed in dwarven politics nor did she know Kenric's exact age, so she couldn't say one way or another whether the rumor was true, but she liked to think it, liked to imagine that in a different life, Kenric could have sat the throne rather than King Bhelen.

Sometimes, she liked to imagine that she and Rith had a life together, and that her daughter, who would forever call another woman mother, was theirs.

By the Stone, the tunnel was hot. Falla lifted an ungloved hand, wiped the sweat from her forehead. She could feel tendrils of her auburn hair sticking to the back of her neck; she wasn't even wearing her helmet. She debated taking a drink of water. Kenric had warned them he had no idea how long their investigation would take, and Falla had no wish for her second death to be caused by something so stupid as not rationing water, but ancestors, she was sweltering, all kitted up and carrying extra gear.

"Anyone else basting in their own juices?" Her voice started out as a croak, phlegmy with disuse, but cleared by the end of her question.

"A little," Rith replied, "but not much more than usual. Are you sweating that bad?"

"Yeah," she admitted. There were runnels of sweat all down her back, making her undertunic chafe against her.

"I can smell her from here," Gwydd said, grunting a laugh.

"Fuck off, Gwydd," Falla retorted automatically. "I'm surprised you can smell anything but yourself."

"And how would you know what I smell like?"

"We all know what you smell like," Kenric said, his voice sounding flat, frequencies absorbed by the surrounding earth. "It's rather distinctive."

"Is not."

Rith swiveled around for a few paces, eyeballing Gwydd. "Dwarven musk, unwashed filth, a hint of old onions, something that singes the nose hairs. Eau de Gwydd, a most unappetizing bouquet."

"You're such a shit, Rith." Gwydd sounded fond.

"Least I don't smell like shit."

"Hey, I don't either!" Gwydd was indignant.

Falla cackled. "You do and you know it. I've seen you do the sniff test to your underthings. I've seen the faces you make."

"Kinda like this, right?" Rith scrunched up his face, turned it away, pulled back swiftly, and waved a hand under his nose. "Or maybe like this?" Rith crossed his eyes, staggered a step or two. "Fuckin' ancestors!" he swore, his mimicry of Gwydd dead accurate.

Gwydd protested over the sound of their laughter. "I do wash myself, damn it!"

When their laughter subsided, Kenric said, "You're overheating, Falla?"

"Mm-hmm." The farther in they got, the hotter it felt. Falla's head was beginning to pound.

"I think we're reaching the end of this. Floor is starting to level off some. We'll take a break when we get out."

"Ser," she said, and kept walking.

Kenric was right; he was always right. The mouth of the tunnel soon came into view, the light of the glow lanterns rushing from the exit, spreading wildly into open space, flinging itself outward beam by beam until it dissipated into nothing. The air was markedly cooler, which Falla had hoped to be a relief, but instead she only felt worse, her headache intensifying.

"Astyth's stitches," Gwydd breathed. "A thaig? Here?"

"So it seems," Kenric said, lifting his lantern high, looking around. "An old one, by my estimation. Far older than anything I know of."

Falla looked around wearily, taking her surroundings in despite the strong desire to shuck off her armor and lie down. They had come out in what looked like a side room of sorts, the walls of it more resembling a cave than the smooth, perfect masonry of Orzammar. Rough-hewn columns connected floor and ceiling; when Falla peered more closely, she saw that they had formerly been stalagmites and stalactites that had grown together.

There was no door to the room, only an archway that hinted at the rest of the thaig. Surprisingly, it was not pitch dark, and beyond the outlines of the entrance Falla could see the glow of lights, bright blue, although the source of them remained hidden.

"How old is old, Kenric?" Rith asked.

Kenric thought for a moment. "I won't be able to say for sure until we see more of this place, but it feels incredibly old." He strode towards the arch and peered out, then motioned for the squad to follow.

Falla stirred herself with difficulty, put a hand to her face. Her fingers touched moisture at her temple. "Ugh," she groaned.

Gwydd paused and gave her a concerned look. "You all right?"

"No," Falla confessed, "but it's gonna have to wait until Kenric calls a stop."

Gwydd grunted, then called out, "Hey Captain!" His voice rang loudly against the hard surfaces of the room.

"I haven't forgotten about Falla." Kenric turned his shoulders just enough to look back at them. "We'll rest soon. Protocol first, though. Let's secure the area."

The room beyond was high-ceilinged, the top of it lost in shadow, too far for the glow lanterns' light. Spaced widely throughout were more floor-to-ceiling columns, each perfectly square, inside which were housed curious blue panels of light. They flickered as if on fire, and Falla realized with a start when she got closer that they _were_ fire, that the columns themselves were hollow, each filled with fuelless azure flame that never seemed to burn out.

"It's cold," Rith said, his voice colored with wonder. "Like magic. But how...?"

"Like I said, Rith." Kenric joined him at the column, bending forward to inspect the craftsmanship. "This thaig is older than anything I have ever experienced, or have been taught. Older than the trenches, older than Ortan Thaig, or even Aeducan Thaig. Older than any of the history I have ever been taught."

Fascinated, her misery momentarily forgotten, Falla asked, "Are you saying it's prehistoric?"

At the same time, Gwydd said, "You were taught history?"

Kenric sighed and gave Gwydd a long-suffering look. "Yes. I was taught history, as a child. I did some research of my own, even."

Rith's eyes were opened wide; his expression was one of reverence. "It's true, then?" He backed away from Kenric a few steps.

"What's true, Rith?"

“That you’re an Aeducan.”

Silence as Kenric considered his answer. Then, “Does it matter what my House name is? We’re all dead anyway. This changes nothing, Rith.”

“Your Majesty - “

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Yes, Captain,” Rith mumbled, looking down at the floor.

“So what if Kenric has a House?” Gwydd said, puffing himself up. “I have a House too.”

Falla rolled her eyes, then wiped sweat off her forehead. “That’s not the same, Gwydd, and you know it.”

“House Saelac is a respected House!” Gwydd said, miffed.

“What’s that got to do with Kenric being an Aeducan?” asked Rith. He glanced at Kenric. “Your Majesty.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake -”

“It’s just as respected as Kenric’s House!” Gwydd interjected. “I don’t see what the big deal is. Kenric’s ass isn’t in the big chair.”

“You’re right, it isn’t. It’s down here, with you shit-for-brains. Pick your jaw up off the ground, Rith. I’m the same as I’ve always been. And Gwydd, House Saelac is in no way equal to House Aeducan, so you can shut your face too.” Kenric pointed into the semi-darkness, beyond the ring of lantern light. “We’ve got some investigating to do, which won’t happen if all of you keep flapping your gums.”

“Captain,” Falla started.

“Except for Falla, who has enough sense not to say anything at all. Thank you, Falla, for being the exemplar for the idiots in this squad.”

“Ser.”

“Exemplar?”

“For the love of the fucking Stone, Gwydd!” Kenric grabbed a lantern, the stone on the end swinging wildly, and stomped off.

Gwydd chortled to himself. “He hates it when I do that.”

“Yeah Gwydd, we know.” Rith picked up the stick of the other lantern and made his way after Kenric.

“You’re such a dumbass,” Falla said to Gwydd as they fell into step, lagging behind Kenric, whose faster pace was taking him farther ahead. As they traversed the hall she could see that it had at some point been a common or a dining area. Broken stone tables had been pushed to the sides, leaving the middle bare, and storage rooms much like the one they had emerged from were set at regular intervals along the walls, interspersed with tall stone statues she did not recognize as any paragon. Falla stared at them as she passed, fascinated.

The sound of Kenric’s sword sliding from its sheath caught her attention. He had come to a stop ahead of them, almost directly before a large stone archway that marked the end of the hall. He stood with sword and lantern in hand, held in a dual-wielding style, blade and stick loosely crossed in front of his chest. “Well met,” he said cordially, addressing the shadows in the corner.

She narrowed her eyes, squinted to see better. Not darkspawn, these, else they would have been attacked already. Neither were they Legionnaires; the faint outline she could see was too long and skinny to be a dwarf.

“Topsiders,” Kenric said, then added, “Grey Wardens.”

“Legion of the Dead,” the topsider returned. His voice was pleasant, a medium tenor, with an accent Falla had only heard once or twice before, back when she was in the Carta. A steel arrowhead gleamed when he moved; the warden relaxed his stance, his bow and arrow loose in his left hand.

The warden stepped forward into the light, and Falla was struck by how tall he was, how statuesque he looked in his armor of silver and blue. His head was left bare, and Falla noted the shock of unruly black hair falling over the tanned skin of his forehead, and dark eyes, slightly tilted, bright. He smiled, and his whole face lit up. 

“My name is Taka. Well met, Legionnaire…?”

“Captain Kenric,” Kenric supplied. He sheathed his sword, twisted to indicate the rest of his squad. “This is Rith, Falla, and Gwydd.”

“Well met Captain Kenric, and Rith, and Falla, and Gwydd.” Taka bowed slightly with each name. Falla inclined her head and gave the warden a half-smile. Ancestors, he was charming.

“Are you alone?” Kenric asked.

“Maker, no,” Taka replied, turning around. He prodded roughly at a lump in front of him. “Carver, wake up. We have company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments appreciated. I still don't think I've found my stride and the longer this chapter sits in draft the more I hate it, so I'm flinging it out before I get so cranky that I delete it.


	5. Chapter 5

Carver stirred, but not enough, so Taka got the toe of his boot deeply into the other man's backside and shoved. "Carver," he said again, a bit more loudly. "Company."

"I'm up, I'm up," came the grumble, and Carver uncurled himself from his position, pushed himself to standing, his vambraces clacking when they touched the stone floor. He rubbed at his eyes blearily with both hands, then ran his fingers through his hair. A lock of it fell back onto his forehead, slanting diagonally across.

Taka moved out of the way, turning back towards the legionnaires. "Meet the squad," he said as Carver rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from left to right and back again. "Captain Kenric. Then Gwydd, Falla, and Rith."

"I'm Carver," the other Grey Warden said, folding his arms across his chest. Gruffly, he stuck a hand out. Kenric shook it.

"Forgive my partner his poor manners," Taka said, grinning. "He is more used to monosyllables when we're down here."

"That's amazing," Carver said, rolling his eyes. "Not even thirty seconds in and you're doing this."

He gave Carver an innocent smile. "Doing what?"

"This. The thing. With your words. Maker damn it! I'm going to shut up now."

One of the dwarves laughed, a baritone sound. Gwydd, Taka thought. His hair was black like Carver's, and Taka could tell even under the armor that he was stoutly built. His pale, lightly bearded face was clear of tattoos but for a single dark gray bar cutting straight across his left cheekbone. Taka noticed the same marking on all of the dwarves' faces.

"I like him," Gwydd announced, indicating Carver.

"You would," replied one of the other dwarves, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, with freckles dusted across cheeks and nose bridge. "Like calls to like, and all that."

"Think that greatsword is his?" Kenric mused.

"Absolutely," said Rith.

"Guess Warden Taka has the brains, then."

"Maker," groaned Carver. "That's just my luck, smart-mouthed dwarves. I thought you people were supposed to be stoic and fun-hating."

Kenric snorted. "Perhaps the others. Sounds like Kardol."

"Definitely Kardol," Rith agreed.

"Oi I'm Legion of the Dead, my life is forfeit, I don't even drink anymore, I'm Kardol." Gwydd swaggered around, voice so low it was more a growl than anything else. The other three dwarves snickered. 

"Wait," Gwydd said once the laughter died down. "What do you mean, like calls to like?"

Rith put his face in his hand. "Do I really have to - "

"Yes."

"Lay off the act, Gwydd, you know full well what he meant." A disapproving frown from Kenric.

"Well," Taka said cheerily, cutting in, "I'm glad I met you, and not this Kardol fellow." He looked at each of the dwarves in turn, his eyes coming to a rest on the female. Sweat beaded at her temples, turning strands of auburn hair into dark tendrils on her face. She looked pained, the skin around her eyes tight. "Falla, are you alright?"

"I could use a break," she said weakly, reaching for Rith. He moved closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She slumped against him.

"Here's a good a spot as any to catch our breaths," Kenric said. "Wardens, I hope you don't mind us joining you for a little while."

Carver opened his mouth.

"Not at all," Taka said quickly. "The more the merrier, right Carver?" He could feel the darkspawn as a coarse and discordant chant in his head, estimated they were far enough away not to cause trouble for the time being. There were enough of them to cause trouble, though, and despite Carver's stubbornness, Taka knew Carver would see reason.

The taller man sighed loudly. "Right."

The dwarves said nothing as they unslung their packs and propped the lantern poles up between them. They worked with a practiced efficiency, Taka noted, watching as rations were handed out almost without looking, how they put their backs to each other without a word.

"Hot," Falla said when they sat down, tilting her head back to drink from her waterskin. She swallowed noisily. "Ancestors, it's burning."

"You sick or something?" Gwydd craned his neck around and gave her a concerned look.

Rith leaned over, his body half-illuminated in the circular pool of the glow lantern's light, and laid his palm over her forehead. "You're a bit feverish," he pronounced.

Falla grimaced at his touch, pulled away. She covered half her face with her hand. "Headache too." Abruptly she stood, almost upsetting Rith.

"Falla?" Concern shaded Kenric's voice.

She let out a low moan, her splayed hands hovering in front of her face. “Cut it out,” she groaned. Taka could see her shaking. "Cut it out."

"Hey now," Gwydd warned. "Captain hasn't done a thing."

Kenric shook his head to stave off further commentary from Gwydd. "Cut what out, Falla?"

"Singing. All the wrong notes. Rith, it hurts." Falla put her hands to her head, her fingers curling into claws, like she was trying to dig the pain out with her nails. Her face crumpled into an expression of misery, centering to a point - her eyes, screwed shut. "Rith, _help."_

Rith scrambled to his feet immediately, facing her. Taka was moved by how gently he cradled Falla's face. "I'm here," he said soothingly. "Falla, I'm - "

"Cut it out," she muttered, interrupting him. "Cut it out. Cut it out!"

"Kenric," Rith said grimly, glancing at the captain. "I think it's the Stone."

Kenric produced a small rock pick from amongst his gear and handed it over.

"I've never seen Stone sense like that before," Carver said.

Kenric grunted. "Falla is...special." He looked on as Rith coaxed one of Falla's hands away from her head, his words unintelligible but soothing. "She has a stronger connection to the Stone than anyone I've ever met. Do you know what the gangue is, human?"

Carver's lips twisted. "Actually, I do."

Taka smiled to himself as Kenric's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "An educated topsider," the captain said. "Paragon's virtue. I never thought..." His head turned back in Falla's direction as she took the pick in hand. "We're going to have to continue this conversation when this is over. Grab your things. She doesn't stop for anyone."

"Cut it out," Falla repeated, and began walking, one hand dragging lightly across the wall, the other clutching the pick. Slowly she went, fingertips drifting in a waveform behind her. It was apparent that she was going to exit the hall.

Taka gathered his gear hastily, slung his bow across his body, and followed the squad as they tracked Falla. Her path took them out to a central chamber, shadowed and high-ceilinged like the dining hall, with more of those curious veilfire columns stretching up into darkness. There were more archways set into the thick stone walls, and the hall itself was long and wide, humongous in scope. Large, shallow braziers were placed at regular intervals down the center, but whatever fire they once held was long dead. Now, only the fitful blue light of veilfire remained, and the soft mistiness of the legionnaires' glowing stones.

As they walked it became evident that some kind of war had occurred. Scars crisscrossed the floor, which was shattered and gaping in places. Leaned up against columns and walls were suits of armor, the bodies within long ago fallen to dust. Broken weapons were all around, mostly swords and axes, the metal tarnished and black, and in many cases notched beyond repair.

"An entire civilization down here," Kenric said, his voice hushed, "and none of it in our records. How could that be? This place could have housed thousands."

"History is subject to whim," Carver replied, sounding unlike himself. "But I've seen constructions like this before. The statues, see? They aren't paragons."

"No, they aren't." Kenric gave Carver a narrow-eyed look. "Where have you seen this before?"

The other warden went silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "A place called Bartrand's Folly. They called it a primeval thaig, older than memory. It was where the red lyrium was first found."

"Red lyrium?" Gwydd sounded skeptical. "You just lost me."

"Is that why the two of you are down here?" Kenric asked, and Taka had to admire the dwarf's intelligence, his ability to jump to logical conclusions. "You haven't the look of wardens on their Calling. And typically they arrive singly, not in pairs."

Taka hmmed his assent, even as he felt the Taint surge in his blood. They were getting closer, not farther, and Falla showed no signs of slowing down. Idly, and not for the first time, he wondered if the darkspawn could sense them as well. 

But there was the matter of the conversation at hand. "You're correct,” Taka said pleasantly. “The warden-commander wanted another investigation into red lyrium and where it came from. Carver and I split off from the rest of the expedition to explore a tunnel, and tumbled ass over teakettle down a tunnel and into this thaig." It had been harrowing when he'd woken and had his first taste of true darkness without any hope of light; thankfully, Carver had held onto his torches, and after making sure nothing was broken, they'd gotten one of them lit. Taka remembered vividly the rush of relief, and how he'd drunk in the light, let it wash away the whispers that only grew louder in the dark.

"I understand why he's here," Kenric said, indicating Carver, "but what about you?"

Taka grinned. "Why, my brains, of course. How else would Carver know what to hit?"

"Cute," Carver said flatly. “You know, in the dark, I could easily mistake you for a darkspawn.”

Taka volleyed his reply back without even thinking. “I’m too pretty for that, Carver, but the same can’t be said of you.”

“Maker,” Carver said, and Taka braced himself for the next part: _Maker, I hate you,_ or perhaps _Maker, you’re a shit._

"Friends," called Rith, halting, holding his stick high so that it bathed Falla in light. "It's here."

Taka watched in fascination as Falla tapped on the thaig wall with the blunt part of the pick. A fist-sized portion of the thaig wall crumbled to pieces, falling to the ground in soft, strangely wet lumps. Falla struck the wall again, causing more of the rot - there was no better word for it - to drop. Gwydd approached as she worked, holding the other glowing stone. In its light, the curd-like lumps on the ground shone oily and iridescent.

"Cut it out," Falla said in a monotone, flipping the pick to the pointy end, sinking it easily into the wall. "Cut it out." More of the rotten stone thumped to the ground and broke apart.

Carver wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Andraste's tits, that's foul."

Taka stepped back when the other dwarves pulled picks out to carve the impurity from the wall. "Hold this," Gwydd told him, shoving the stick of the lantern at him. He and Carver found themselves each holding a light as the dwarves descended upon the wall, picks thudding into it with a stomach-turning squish.

Deep they went, and wide. The gangue vein was like a cavity in the stone, decaying and easily carved away. Taka stood, shifting his weight from side to side, watched the hole widen, listened to the occasional pings of metal against healthy rock.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked eventually.

"Not unless you're a legionnaire," came the response from Kenric.

"All right then." He crossed his arms over his chest. The dangling stone swung, sent the dwarves' shadows dancing on the wall.

"There," Falla said finally, reaching into the hole for something, her pick tinking away as she worked. "Ancestors, what is -"

"Red lyrium," Carver breathed, leaning forward to see better. "Shit."

The stone awoke with a hissing scream. 

The entire party flinched; Gwydd swore angrily, dwarvish curses spiking the air. Sooty vapor, oily and gray, fumed from the lumps on the ground, coalescing in a tight swirl, forming itself into a vaguely humanoid shape that Taka swore exuded hateful intent.

He stared, his heartbeat tripping over itself as the emotion surged over him; he gasped at the sudden pain in his chest. "Maker's mercy, what _is_ that?"

"Nugfucker!" Rith gagged, then spun and dove, tucking himself into a roll that carried him away from the wall. "Falla!"

"Here!" she called back strongly, her fugue gone. "Kenric, don't touch it!"

"The fuck is it?" Gwydd asked, hopping back, dropping his pick for his axe.

"Gangue shade," Carver said, laying his lantern on the floor, drawing his greatsword from its sheath. Taka pulled his bow over his head and strung it, flipped the catch on the lid of his quiver.

Kenric looked equal parts surprised and perplexed, shuffling backwards towards Rith’s left side. "What the shit is a gangue shade?" he asked, the question directed at Carver. His sword rang as it cleared the scabbard. The dwarf held it one-handed, not bothering to release the shield strapped to his back. He kept his distance, balancing lightly on his toes. "All right, it doesn't seem like it can move -"

In the blink of an eye the shade elongated, snapped out, elastic, struck like a snake at the nearest person. "Gwydd!" Falla screamed as the shade stabbed through him. 

"Oh!" the warrior exclaimed softly, right before he fell like a stone, unconscious, his axe clattering to the floor.

Kenric slid in front of Gwydd's body faster than Taka would have thought possible, his sword gripped in two hands. "Ancestors!" the captain shouted, and brought the sword straight down onto the shade.

Which parted like smoke before it.

Kenric's sword slammed edge-first into the wall, and with a teeth-scraping screech and crack, broke in two. His arms jerked with rebound. The dwarf captain staggered, righted himself, flung himself away from the shade as it struck again, just missing. Its scream of frustration cut through the air.

"How do we fight this, Carver?" Taka asked desperately.

"I don't know!" Carver snapped. "I had my sister's magic last time!"

"Where the fuck is your sister when we need her then?!" Rith yelled, edging closer to Gwydd's body, his blades out.

"You leave my sister out of this!" Carver roared in response, which would have been funny were they not facing an unhittable enemy the likes of which only Carver had faced before. Instead it was sad, because Taka too wanted to know where the other Hawke was. Magic. Magic would have been nice.

He nocked an arrow and sighted, but didn't fire. The shade, affronted at Kenric's assault, was following him, hissing and attacking, meeting only empty air as Kenric dodged repeatedly. The dwarves fell into evasive measures, clumping together, then breaking apart, keeping out of reach of the shade.

"Can't we just leave it?" Carver asked loudly.

"No!" all three of the dwarves yelled in unison.

"There goes that plan," Taka muttered, looking around. There had to be something on the ground that could help, at the very least a weapon to replace the one Kenric had broken. Anxious, he peered at the floor, trying to find anything that might be vaguely sword shaped.

 _There!_ he thought, sprinting towards the wall. A scabbard, leather-wrapped pommel jutting from it, with untarnished silver filigree barely catching the light. In Taka's hand it was a shortsword, but in Kenric's...

"Kenric!" Taka shouted, and heaved.

Kenric's hand shot up, snagged the scabbard out of the air. He whirled to face the shade, and in one smooth motion the sword leapt free, blazing with light, lyrium runes white fire upon the blade.

"What the - ?" was all Kenric could manage before clawed fog descended upon him. His sword flashed up to block, trailing afterimages.

Blade met shade in a shower of sparks. It shrieked, its outlines fuzzing for one long, breathless moment before it snapped back into focus, corporeal and opaque.

The sword sheared cleanly through the shade's arm.

Black fluid spurted. The shade howled its fury even as Taka raised his bow, re-nocking, and drew, sending an arrow speeding through the air. It buried itself in the main part of the shade's body, sinking almost up to the fletching. The shade doubled over the shaft, a sound like a hundred keening harts issuing from its mouth. Carver and Rith charged forward, taking advantage if its momentary weakness.

"Falla!" Kenric's sword was a blur of light as he hacked at the shade.

"Ser!"

"Take the damn shot!"

And she did, her arrow boring dead center into the shade's head, where the brain might have been.

Carver's two-handed swing took the head clean off in the next second. It fell in an inky spray to the ground, leaving the body behind, which collapsed in on itself, lines running together like pudding, and melted onto the floor.

Slowly, the rotten stone blanched white, and dissolved away.

"Maker's breath!" Taka said, relieved. He exhaled, lowering his bow, allowed the string to resume its rest position. Kenric, Falla, and Rith made a beeline for Gwydd. 

"Wake up," Falla said, gruff but tender, taking hold of his shoulder and shaking. "Come on, Gwydd. I'll let you have my share of nug." She shook him again; Rith kicked him for good measure.

The warrior came to, groaning. "I fucking hate nug," he said, trying to sit. Rith put a knee on the floor and got both hands behind Gwydd's back. "Thanks, Rith. Did you just kick me?"

Kenric heaved a long sigh, then smiled. "How do you feel?"

"Head is ringing all weird-like," Gwydd answered.

"You did just get taken out by a ghost," Rith pointed out. "Can you stand?"

Gwydd poked his own head a few times, shook it so hard that Taka wouldn’t have been surprised to hear marbles rattling around.. "If you lend me your shoulder, yeah." Rith held out his arm and Gwydd clasped it, pulling himself to standing for a second before he staggered. 

Rith caught him. "Easy now, friend. Falla, do you think... Falla?"

"Yeah?" She turned from where she was shoulder-deep in the hole they'd scraped out.

Carver's breath whistled through his teeth. "Don't touch the red lyrium!"

"I won't," Falla assured him, but Taka felt uneasy. He had already seen too much of red lyrium, seen what it could do, felt the inexplicable pressure on his temples when he drew too near. "There is something here that...calls to me... Ah! I've got it." She withdrew from the wall and held out her hands.

Taka closed the distance between them, peered down. "It's a very pretty rock?"

Falla giggled. "Nice try. Look at this side." She turned the fist-sized stone over in her hands, revealing a long, jagged crack that split the rock from top to bottom; Taka could see lines of blue light leaking from it. Within the stone was clear blue crystal, striated with darker cobalt stripes.

"A raw lyrium geode?" Taka asked.

"Exactly," Falla said, her hands moving up and down, as if testing the geode’s weight, its heft. "It's perfect. Almost feels like the Stone wanted me to find this."

"I see," Taka said, not really seeing. Carver replaced Falla at the hole, his head disappearing into the dark. "Carver?"

"Just taking a look." Carver's words came out muffled, sharpened bit by bit as he withdrew. "It's definitely red lyrium."

"That's interesting how the red lyrium was so close to the gangue," Taka said, thinking out loud. "Coincidence? What is the gangue, exactly?"

"It's the impurity present in the Stone which needs to be excised," Kenric answered, walking back to them. "It is also the darkness within ourselves that needs to be purged in order to reach peace. But the gangue is always present, always has been. It is balanced against the Stone."

"If it's balanced, why cut it out of the earth?"

"Because if left unattended it would grow and upset the balance," Kenric explained. "I'd say more, but we need to set up camp and rest, without being interrupted this time. Gwydd and Falla both need it. I'll be happy to chat during the first watch, however."

Taka nodded. "We have a lot to talk about."

Kenric's smile was just a quick twitch of the corners of his mouth. "That we do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual, blah blah blah, let me know if it's not working for you. I will not be offended in the slightest if you have criticism.


	6. Chapter 6

They encamped at the base of a veilfire column a good distance away from the hole in the wall, setting up the bedrolls by one of the oversized braziers. The lamps they laid over the shallow bowl, allowing the lit stones to hang over the sides. The light played strangely over the suits of armor closest to them, illuminating long-desiccated faces with wispy hanks of hair poking out from beneath helms. The situation was somewhat creepy, Kenric thought, but its temporary nature made it tolerable, whatever tolerable was when resting next to moldering skeletons.

Kenric could tell that Taka was full of questions, but his first priority was to get his team fed and rested. Once the prep was finished he dug up a packet of jerky from his rucksack, then settled down to eat, the shell of his armor pressed to the wide stone plinth which held the brazier. Kenric winced at the initial bite of salivary glands as he chewed, washed down his mouthful with a few gulps of water, tore off more pieces of dried meat, and did his best not to think about what precisely he was eating.

He kept an eye on Gwydd, who picked at his food with an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm. Other than that, the warrior seemed otherwise unchanged and unperturbed from his encounter. Still, Kenric wanted to be sure nothing was wrong. He watched as Gwydd leaned back against the stone and patted a helmet atop an ancient head. The skull disintegrated with a soft whoosh, collapsing in on itself, and the helmet fell away, rolling with sharp clanks onto the floor.

“Oops,” Gwydd said around his mouthful.

“He didn’t need that anyway.” Falla grinned. It was more a rictus on account of the way she was lit, the lantern under which she sat throwing the planes of her face into stark relief, turning her eyes into dark wells, changing her forehead and cheeks into gleaming white bone. Kenric glanced away, discomfited. 

Rith took his place next to Falla, a piece of jerky protruding from his mouth wiggling as he spoke. “Yeah, but we should be respectful. No one has ever returned these dwarves to the Stone.”

“You volunteerin’, Rith?”

“Only if you’re helping, Gwydd.”

Kenric’s snort of laughter filled the resultant silence.

“What does it mean, precisely, to return someone to the Stone?” Taka asked, walking over from where he’d heaped the Grey Warden packs. He sat elegantly, folding his long legs underneath him.

Kenric’s head tilted slightly as he formulated his response. “Your people believe that you will join the Maker after you die,” he started, and Taka nodded. “We bury our dead in the earth and return them to their original state.”

“Stone?” Carver asked, not looking up from inspecting his sword.

“Not quite,” Kenric said, understanding what he was asking. “We aren’t made of rock. But we are born of her, the Stone, and when we die we reunite our bodies with the earth so that she can find us again. It is both physical and spiritual.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Falla leaning her head back against the plinth, smiling faintly to herself.

“And this Stone,” Taka continued, “she told you, Falla, where to find the gangue?”

“Mm-hmm.” Falla’s eyes closed; her smile remained.

“Did the Stone tell you how to find this place?”

Kenric shook his head. “No, an ogre did that for us.”

“An ogre.” Carver’s voice was flat.

“Aye,” Kenric said, and it was his turn to grin. “An angry ogre and about a dozen of its closest friends kindly showed us a tunnel that led down to this - you called it a primeval thaig, warden?” Carver answered with a grunt.

“And there was a glowing hammer,” Rith supplied, “like your glowing sword.”

“Yes, about that,” Taka mused, rubbing his pointer finger over the corner of his eye. “That was quite surprising. But you adapted quickly and well, captain. This isn’t your first time seeing it, is it?”

Kenric’s eyes narrowed as he looked the warden, reconsidering his initial impression. His original flippant remark, it seemed, was more accurate than he’d realized. Taka was the brains indeed if he could make that inference just from one observation. Kenric hadn’t dropped the sword, nor had he recoiled in fear when the runes blazed down its length. He could argue that he had no choice but to use the sword, which was true, but he doubted Taka would see it that way. He had to have been a player of the Game, Kenric concluded. There was no other explanation. No others would be so detail-minded.

“You’re right, it isn’t,” he said affably.

Taka smiled brightly, a light dancing in his eyes. Whoever he had been in his last life, Kenric thought, that combination of smarts and charm would have been deadly. 

“Might I see it, captain?”

Kenric handed the scabbarded sword over. “Sure.”

The blade remained dark when Taka drew it out; his brows furrowed as he examined the weapon. “Here,” Taka said eventually, once his efforts turned up nothing, and reversed the sword, holding it carefully by the blade. “If you could please…”

Kenric reached out, the palm of his hand touching the pommel first. The runes roused instantly, marching down in two glowing lines, orderly and corralled, lacking the blazing fire from the earlier fight.

“Fascinating,” Taka said, fitting the scabbard over the tip of the sword. He sheathed it swiftly. The mouth of the scabbard clacked against the guard when it met. “It only responds to you, am I right?”

“It would seem so, aye.” As it had with the other. Kenric’s lips flattened briefly into a line. The hammer had been too large for him to use, but it would have been the perfect size for something else of dwarven make and blood.

“I hadn’t thought the dwarves used magic, but…” Taka turned and tapped the other warden on the shoulder. “Carver. Magic, right? Not just enchantment, but magic, keyed specifically to Kenric?”

Carver peered over, then shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? Am I a mage by association now?”

Taka sighed. “I just thought perhaps you might -”

“If you say another word about my sister - “

“I haven’t said a thing about your sister!” Taka growled.

“You’re pretty fixated on your sister,” said Rith.

“I am not,” Carver retorted, the scrape of his whetstone against his blade growing louder. “It’s all history now, and I’ve dealt with it.”

Falla snorted. “Doesn’t sound like you have.”

“He hasn’t,” Taka affirmed.

“Yes, I have,” Carver said, clearly annoyed. 

“Got big shoes to fill, lad?” Kenric asked, another grin stretching across his face.

Taka snickered. “His sister’s the Champion of Kirkwall. And my cousin is the Inquisitor.”

“Ah,” said Kenric, and there was an awkward pause. “Who?” he said, bewildered.

“Yeah, who?” said Gwydd, and he looked at Rith, gave him a frown and a shrug.

“Dunno.” Rith’s head swiveled in Falla’s direction.

“Beats me,” she said, turning her palms up.

“You’re joking,” Carver said then, incredulity staining his voice. “You don’t know who the Champion of Kirkwall is, nor the Inquisitor?”

Gwydd wore a thoughtful expression. “Does she ask a lot of questions?”

“Not at all,” said Taka. “More like she raises them. Or answers them.”

“Then no. I don’t get it. Why is she called the Inquisitor? What is Kirkwall?”

“Kenric’s a prince!” Rith blurted out suddenly. “Your Majesty.”

Kenric groaned, putting a gloved hand to his face. He’d known it was a bad idea to mention his upbringing. “Really, again?”

“You win then.” Taka laughed merrily. “Can’t beat that.”

“No, you can’t,” and Rith sounded proud, of all things.

Kenric sighed loudly, irritation flaring, and glared at Rith. “For the third time, it doesn’t matter. My House name does not matter. What matters is what we do here, right now. If who I am outweighs what I do and how I treat you, then I don’t want you on my team. And that’s the last I’m going to say about it. Got me, Rith?”

A long silence.

“Captain,” Falla said, mollifying, “he was just…” 

Kenric turned his glower upon her instead. “You’re smarter than this, Falla. You don’t want to test me right now.”

“No, I don’t. Ser.”

“Rith?” Kenric looked back to him. “Am I understood?”

The younger dwarf nodded, crestfallen, and dropped his gaze to his feet. “Aye, Captain.”

Kenric stood, his appetite having deserted him in the face of his foul mood. “Go get rest, all of you. I’ll take first watch with Taka.” He noted the human’s mildly amused look, most likely at being bossed around. 

“I’m sure Carver won’t mind getting a bit of extra rest.” That smile again, winsome.

“He won’t,” Carver said, sheathing his greatsword and getting to his feet.

Kenric replaced his rations in his pack, then re-buckled his new sword around his waist. Scowling, he slipped his arm through the loops in his shield and worked the grip a few times, the muscles in his forearm flexing. Quickly he checked buckles and ties, the slim dagger sheathed on his left hip, its twin housed on the side of his right boot. When all was satisfactory, he began making his rounds.

Gwydd was asleep already, flat on his back, his armor and quilting in a pile next to his bedroll. Kenric simply shook his head and moved on. Gwydd would fight naked and laugh about it if push came to shove; if darkspawn attacked, Gwydd’s readiness would not be the first thing on his mind. Next was Rith, who refused to make eye contact with him as he prepared to sleep, the pile of knives next to his bedroll growing with metallic clanks as he fished them out from their hidden places and tossed them down. And then Falla, bow and quiver close by her head. She was also down to her thin shirt and breeches, curled on her side in her bedroll, her nose practically touching a rock.

“What is that, Falla?” Kenric squatted next to her, indicating the rock.

“A lyrium geode,” she replied, voice low and almost reverent-sounding, tension-free. She pushed herself up on one elbow. “ _Isala, isala. _Look, Kenric.” She turned the rock in her hands so that he could see the lyrium shining through the crack.__

__He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”_ _

__She smiled at him, touched the geode to her forehead. “It’s some of the purest lyrium I have ever seen. I had to take it for myself.”_ _

__Kenric found he had no answer as Falla laid back down, the geode still pressed to her forehead. After a moment he walked away. Behind him, he heard the sibilance of her whispers floating out into the semi-dark._ _

__Taka nodded to him as he passed. “You can relax a little, Captain,” the Grey Warden said. “We don’t sense too many darkspawn in the immediate vicinity.”_ _

__“Can’t they sense you?”_ _

__“Not at this distance.”_ _

__“Well, that’s a relief.” There was nothing said for a moment; Kenric watched Carver kneel atop his bedroll, divested of his armor, head bowed. “Grey Warden ritual?”_ _

__“Hmm?” Taka glanced to Kenric, then followed his line of sight to Carver. “Oh, no. Nothing of the sort, even though we are mostly Andrastian. It’s personal for him.”_ _

__Kenric regarded the other warrior, weighed him with his eyes. “I didn’t take him to be the pious kind.”_ _

__“Carver is full of surprises.” A smile flitted over Taka’s face. “He prays for his sisters. That’s as specific as I’ll get. It isn’t my place to say more.”_ _

__“Aye, that I understand.”_ _

__Carver took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then laid down, reaching out to touch the hilt of his greatsword. Assured of its nearness, he nodded once at Taka, who nodded back and got to his feet, beginning his own circuit around their camp._ _

__Kenric leaned against the brazier plinth, allowed his hand to rest on the pommel of his sword, and stared out into the expansive blue-blackness of the thaig, his thoughts buoyed by Falla’s unsettling, ghostly whispers._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a bit of a respite before things really get crazy.
> 
> I have struggled so much with this chapter. I'm sick of looking at it, just take it, Maker take it please.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks and love to Notaricon for the extra brain and eyes on this chapter.

She could follow the thread of the red lyrium through the rock, her fingers describing the contours of the line hidden behind the wall. It sang to her, discordant and sick, its harmonies distorted, the beats of the soundwaves akin to pressure changes in her ears. _Isala, isala,_ she had murmured to the blue before falling asleep, but red stone was ill, infected somehow.

Kenric had wanted to know, once they were all rested, if she could sense it. Without looking at the gangue-hole she knew that she could. The fever of the gangue was mostly gone, leaving her with her piercing headache and a fluttering chorus of sibilance at the edge of her hearing. Falla said nothing as she walked, listening for the dissonant notes of the song, the hot red whispers. Normal lyrium was cool and bell-like, soothing. Red lyrium was angry, the corruption pulsing within it, and Falla couldn’t tell whether the anger came from the Stone or the taint itself.

The taint. Or perhaps the gangue. Falla frowned as her finger pads caught on minute imperfections in the thaig wall. The gangue being so close to the red lyrium was worrisome; she didn’t want to think that the gangue could infect lyrium, wanted to believe it was just a coincidence. Lyrium was the living heart of the Stone, the blood of dwarven civilization, the connection between present and past, carved by the Shapers. To have its purity affected by the gangue - no, Falla didn’t like the symbolism. The red lyrium and the gangue could not be related.

But her gut churned with uneasy certainty. 

Behind her were Carver and Kenric, conversing quietly. Falla stayed within the pendulum swing of light from Carver’s lantern, and tried to make sense of both the song and the words. It was hard to concentrate with the headache boring into her temples, and the intensity only increased the farther along the seam she went.

Truly, she wished that Kenric would call a halt to the expedition soon. So far they hadn’t seen any evidence of a large darkspawn population, and the Grey Wardens had confirmed it. The mystery of the thaig itself and the glowing weapons they had encountered remained, but Falla was much less interested in discovering the truth behind them than obeying the foreboding feeling that had taken up residence in her chest.

She continued to walk, her sense of the red lyrium growing stronger. The seam she traced narrowed down to nothing, but Falla could tell there was more ahead, much more, so much that with every step the voices became clearer, and the pain of the headache bloomed as acid heat in her cheeks. 

“Kenric?” she said, stopping to brace herself against the wall, fingers splayed, arm locked. She did her best not to sway.

“Yeah?” The rest of the party came to a halt.

“Do we have to keep going?”

Silence, brief. “Is something bothering you?”

“Yeah...yeah.” Falla put two fingers to her temple and closed her eyes. “It’s this red lyrium. I have a bad feeling about it. It’s like the gangue is in it, Kenric, and I don’t know how we can get it out. I want to say it isn’t Legion business and leave it.”

Kenric gave her a searching look. “That’s not like you at all, Falla.”

Taka came up to Carver’s side, and the two wardens exchanged glances. “Would you like to do the honors, or should I?” Taka said.

“I’ll tell them,” Carver replied, gauntleted hands going to his hips. He sighed, looking down at the ground, his head drooping.

Kenric narrowed his eyes. “Tell us what, Warden?”

Carver sighed again. “It always feels like it’s somehow our mess, doesn’t it?” he muttered. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. We started this.”

“Started what exactly?” demanded Kenric.

“The red lyrium. I told you about the expedition years ago, when we discovered it. If only we had known. I would have taken Bartrand’s head off his shoulders myself.”

“Carver,” said Kenric, his voice growing louder, “what do you need to tell us?”

There was a moment; Carver was still, and Falla knew he was holding his breath. Finally, he spoke. “Red lyrium is lyrium that has been infected with the taint.”

“Fuck,” Kenric swore, and then said softly, “Looks like it’s just become Legion business.”

Rith’s question came in fits and starts, the magnitude of the revelation weighing down the words in his mouth. “How...how does that...how is it possible?”

“As it turns out, lyrium is alive.” Taka’s lightness of tone was at odds with the subject at hand. “And as such is susceptible to the taint. I would not have believed it had we not received convincing correspondence from some well-regarded researchers.” Taka laughed, but there was no cheer in it. “Darkspawn lyrium! What will this world throw at us next, I wonder? Bad enough that it grants unnatural strength and stamina. It can also grow in flesh and be seeded into the ground.”

“Not to mention the hallucinations,” Carver mumbled.

“Who could forget the hallucinations?” Taka folded one arm across his chest. His fingers found the edge of his pauldron and tapped against it lightly. “Even dwarves can fall prey to the red lyrium, so do not touch it. Stay as far away from it as possible.”

“You know,” growled Kenric, his hand going to the pommel of his sword, “you could have mentioned all of this before we set out to find the source.”

Taka’s head tilted ever so slightly; his eyes crinkled with merriment. “Oh, but captain! I thought we agreed to gad about, forces enjoined!”

“Don’t play that Game bullshit with me, boy,” Kenric warned, and Falla’s hackles rose at the naked threat. “Where do you think you are, Orlais?”

“If only,” sighed the warden.

“Do not test the limits of my respect for your organization, human. I don’t take kindly to being used, whatever the reason. If we are to see this through together, here in the Deep Roads, then I am entitled to full disclosure.” Falla caught the minute movement of Kenric’s hand tightening upon his swordgrip. “Do you understand? Full disclosure, so that you may trust me to guard your back when the time comes.”

Carver beat Taka to the answer. “Yes, we understand.”

Kenric leveled a long stare at the other warden, who responded with a single nod. “We understand, captain. What is it you want to know?”

“Everything about red lyrium, and your purpose here.”

Taka shrugged elegantly. “We’ve told you most of it already. We were tasked, along with our brothers and sisters, to seek out any other sources of red lyrium. It is a dangerous material. While it lends unnatural strength to those who ingest it, it also causes mutations and changes the user into an unrecognizable monster. Just being near it causes hallucinations. Reports say people hear voices. It has some connection with the Fade, and being near it may allow for magical aptitude even among those who lack natural affinity.” He pursed his lips and thought for a minute. “I believe that’s all.”

“Magical aptitude?” asked Kenric sharply.

Carver nodded. “We found a red lyrium idol in the primeval thaig. It did strange things like drawing spirits, levitating objects, making the knight-commander crazy…” His voice trailed off. “But no one can explain why it does what it does.”

Kenric’s lips pressed together in a show of distaste. “And what do you do when you find the source of the lyrium?”

It was Carver’s turn to shrug. “Report it to our superiors. Stop anyone from mining it and carting it off, if we have to. I didn’t ask questions.”

“Maybe you should have,” Falla grumbled, and Kenric shot her a disapproving look.

From farther back in the circle of light, Rith said, “Who would eat lyrium, though? Pure? Can you imagine what that tastes like?”

“Like music and insanity,” Falla suggested, smiling a little.

“Crunchy,” said Gwydd.

“No shit!” Rith said, eyes widening in mock-surprise. “Rock is crunchy. Thank the Stone for your refined palate. Gwydd, next time you’ll tell me you’re a dwarf.”

“Rith,” Gwydd said, dead serious. “I’m a dwarf.”

“By the ancestors, I never knew.”

Carver sounded annoyed again when he spoke. “Are they like this all the time?”

“More or less,” Kenric replied.

_“Maker.”_

“Well, Falla,” Kenric said, the mood having been sufficiently diffused, “you’re the one with the nose. Is there any more red lyrium down here?”

She could feel the accretion of whispers like a vice around her head, and wanted to run as far as she could in the opposite direction. 

Reluctantly, she said, “Yes.”

“A lot of it?”

“A fucking lot of it, ser.”

“Sounds like a source to me. The wardens will be able to make their report. And then we can get back to our purpose down here.” Kenric jerked his head to the side. “Let’s finish this.”

*** *** ***

They did not need Falla to tell them when they found the source.

They had turned left from the central hall, passing tall, foreboding statues, great and spiked and merciless, the largest yet of the ones they had seen. Falla shivered when she beheld them, their faceless silence weighing like stones upon her chest. The statues flanked a grand archway a dozen men wide, opening into a cavernous hall. Twin rows of orderly columns sketched a path to an elevated dais, on which was set an intricate throne, surrounded by bodies. Around each of the columns were twined red lyrium arteries, bulbous and knobby, and when Falla looked more closely she swore that they pulsed, their dull light brightening and darkening through the glittering wet slick coating their surface.

This part of the thaig was less well-preserved, the smooth evenness of the walls falling into crooked, sharp angles, broken and jagged, as if someone or something had tried to demolish it. Spidery cracks grew in the wall, and one section was completely in disrepair, the rock crushed and crumbled, spilling from a dark mouth. Beyond it, a faint crimson glow, and whispers like cut glass.

Falla put her hands to her head, closing her eyes over the heartbeat of the lyrium. The pain in her head was a living thing throbbing through her, a push-pull wave of agony crested with nonsensical words. _First day_ , she could make out, _catch everyone…_

“Falla?”

Rith’s voice, gentle through the press; Rith’s fingers, soft on the backs of her hands. “Center on me, Falla,” he said. “Center on me, and focus.” His hands curled around hers, shifted them from her head to his.

Falla opened her eyes to his dear face, thumbed the constellation of freckles over his cheeks. "Rith," she said, emotion rising in her chest. She leaned her forehead against his, and tried to push the pain away.

"No closer," he replied tenderly, giving her that shy smile. "You kind of smell."

Falla's guffaw was sudden. "You sodding ass!" she exclaimed, giving his shoulder a sharp shove, sending him stumbling off a few paces. "You aren't any better yourself!" She responded to his cheeky grin with more laughter, and ancestors be praised, her headache dimmed briefly.

Rith stepped back into the reach of her arms, a hand slipping behind her head to steady it, and rubbed his nose against hers. With one last smile he re-formed the space between them, re-set the thin and porous professional boundary they kept when they were out. "I assume," he said to the rest of the group, his face stoic again, "that we're going that direction?" He pointed at the rough tunnel.

Carver's eyebrows had risen halfway up his forehead at the display; Taka jabbed him with an elbow. "Um," Carver said, "yes. That seems like the only thing left to do."

"Lads," Kenric said, then glanced at Falla, "and lass. I don't like it. Armor on, weapons out."

Gwydd sighed heavily, then stuck his helmet on his head and patted the top, two clacks. "Hey, whoever's whispering, cut it out. Ain't funny."

"No one's whispering, Gwydd," Rith said flatly.

Falla looked at Gwydd, her eyes widening. "Gwydd?"

"Yeah, Falla?"

"Sixth day..."

"...her screams we hear in our dreams." A moment as the realization dawned on him. "Oh Falla, shit. _Shit."_

A growl from Kenric. “I said armor on, weapons out. I smell darkspawn.”

“I don’t sense that many,” Taka replied instantaneously, and Falla thought he meant it to be reassuring.

“My experience tells me to trust my nose.” Kenric paused, unharnessing his shield. “Either your sense is wrong, or we all smell way worse than we realize.”

Falla flipped her helm on with practiced ease, then strung her bow and re-slung her quiver so that it hung at her hip. She could smell it too: a stench, though stench was too kind a word, just a faint, stomach-churning fetor tinting the slow-moving air. It worsened as they passed through the tunnel, struck them like a blow to the guts when they finally entered the connected chamber.

Horror, pure horror. Falla’s mouth dropped open, air gusting through, the taste and smell of decay and viscera and ancestors knew what else filling her head. Spears of red lyrium protruded from the ground, some standing taller than Carver himself. In the baleful glow of the blighted rock Falla could see undulating, tapered columns rising from several spots around the room. Bile bubbled up in her throat when she beheld the hulking mass in the center of the room some thirty paces off, larger than all six of them put together, grotesque and misshapen and many-breasted, and unmistakably the source of the unholy reek.

“What the fuck…?” Gwydd breathed, looking sick. “That’s too many nipples.”

“Is that a - “ Carver put a hand to his mouth and gagged.

“- broodmother,” Taka finished for him darkly. “Fuck me. Fuck us! Maker, she has red lyrium growing out of her. That’s _revolting._ Sweet Andraste preserve us.”

“Please tell me you know how to fight this thing,” Kenric said, and even he sounded shaken.

“Our reports said to watch out for the tentacles,” Taka answered. “And the vomit, because that’s lovely and precious.”

Kenric put a hand to his head to think. Falla did her best to hold her breath in the fraught, laden silence, and hoped the massive thing wouldn’t notice them before Kenric could come up with something.

Three things happened then; Falla reacted purely on instinct. The broodmother turned faster than her bulk should have allowed and looked directly at them, her black eyes weeping a viscous, inky fluid. Her gaze pinned them all down, rooting their feet firmly to stone. Her mouth spiraled and flowered open, and a shrill, many-voiced wail issued from it.

“Guests!” she shrieked.

Something grabbed Rith around the leg, yanking him into the air. “Rith!” Falla screamed, and as he rose higher and higher she caught the ripple of a pulpy, fleshy tentacle wrapping itself around his body.

Falla screamed again, nocked an arrow and drew, her rage and fear lending her extra strength. It was with immense satisfaction that she watched the arrow shaft streak towards the broodmother’s dripping, fanged mouth. It struck her, a direct hit, and buried itself to the fletching in the back of her throat.

The broodmother’s soul-rending howl drove everyone to their knees. Weapons clattered to the ground as soundwaves buffeted them; Falla curled into herself, weeping with pain.

Rith landed hard as the sound died, bouncing as he did so. The entire party scrabbled to their feet; Kenric drew his sword, and once again the white fire danced down the blade like a living thing. “You fucking _shot her!”_ he yelled at Falla, incensed. “Why did you fucking shoot her?!”

“I’m sorry!” Falla gasped, running to Rith, turning him over. Blessed Stone, he’d only had the wind knocked from him. His eyes were open and clear, pupils reactive. “Shoot first, ask questions later!”

“That’s the worst -”

“Can we discuss the part _where she fucking talked?!”_ roared Gwydd, axe in hand, charging for the nearest tentacle and taking a wild swing.

“She’s awakened!” came Carver’s rejoinder as he put himself next to Gwydd, his greatsword leaping from its sheath.

 _“I don’t know what that means!”_ roared Gwydd, louder this time. He started to laugh, half-hysterical. “Fucking talking darkspawn!” A tentacle came whistling down, cracked upon the floor with enough force to split the rock. Carver and Gwydd rolled aside, weapons held out, dodged a second time as another slammed into the ground.

Taka stepped up, bow drawn, and Falla caught the flash of his arrow as he fired upon the broodmother. With her sharpshooter’s instinct she knew immediately that the shot was _good_ , that it would land right between her eyes, perhaps end the fight before it could truly begin.

The arrow shattered into splinters when it hit her, the steel head falling uselessly into the folds of the broodmother’s obese, obscene flesh.

Taka’s swear was a staccato accent even as he pulled out a second arrow and nocked. This time his arrow landed among the folds of her quivering breasts. The nightmarish darkspawn jolted back, shuddering, then raised her arms. An oily black substance began leaking from her nipples, matching the fluid caked in runnels down her face.

“My children!” the broodmother yowled, the red lyrium spikes flaring with light atop what Falla could see now was a spider carapace extending from her back. “Your mother calls you! My babies!”

Gibbers and cackles. Nascent darkspawn, not yet armored nor clothed, emerged from a hole in the wall on the other side of the chamber, and ran directly at them. Falla recoiled in disgust.

“Cut down those tentacles!” Kenric ordered, his voice booming with command. He rotated his wrist, his sword describing a bright oval. “Falla, give Rith your pack. You and Taka, keep the darkspawn off me. And off Rith especially!” She pulled the strap of her pack over her head and gave it to Rith. 

“Rith, feed her fire, everything we’ve got!”

“You’ve got to be - “ Rith interrupted himself to sling the satchel over his head; before the strap had even settled over his shoulders, he had his knives out. “Your _fucking_ majesty!”

“Aye, if we survive this you can call me that all you like!” Kenric told him, not flinching when another of Taka’s arrows flew past mere inches from his face. “That’s your incentive!”

The two of them took off at a run towards the broodmother, Rith’s voice trailing behind. “That’s the shittiest incentive ever, Kenric!”

Falla couldn’t help herself. She laughed, the sound a ringing peal that soared over the din of battle. Settle now, she had to settle. She knew what to do, what her job was: protect Rith, protect Kenric. Her breathing even, headache forgotten, Falla nocked and drew, brought her knuckles straight to her first molars, and loosed. _By the Stone, let there be enough arrows,_ she prayed. _Let Rith and Kenric finish her swiftly._

In between shots Falla saw the scene unfold. The broodmother’s repugnantly petaled mouth, contorting into a hideous rictus of pain; behind her, the ponderous wet thump of a tentacle hitting the ground. Ahead, Kenric’s sword flashed up and down, raining white-streaked blows upon pairs of wide, doughy breasts; one particularly nasty slash burst her stomach open like a ripe pustule, and from it poured a wave of flopping entrails, carried on a swell of the blackest ichor. Kenric’s curse punctuated the air as he leapt aside.

The broodmother opened her mouth again, heaving and gagging, and spewed acidic, pale green bile.

Rith scrambled out of the way, the drops of bile sizzling on the stone when they landed, retreated some paces back. He gave himself a running start and sprang up, landing on the broodmother’s flank, planting both knives into her body. She screamed and convulsed, throwing her head back, and Kenric took that opportunity to shield bash her arm, trapping it against herself. With a great warcry he slashed down, the weight of his body behind his sword, and severed her arm at the elbow.

Somehow, Rith avoided the spurting of blood. Somehow, Rith tore both knives out, dug his boots into the broodmother’s putrescent rolls, and launched himself higher, his knives landing point-first in the vulnerable space between the red lyrium prisms and the fountaining ruin of her arm. _Go Rith, go_ , Falla thought fiercely, drawing and loosing, drawing and loosing, her ears aching from the broodmother’s disturbing, multi-voiced cry. As long as she had arrows, none of the darkspawn would touch him, would not disturb his precarious scaling of the broodmother’s massive body.

The broodmother shrieked again, wordless, then flailed, trying to rid herself of the dwarves that plagued her. Falla could almost feel the drawing in of power, the centering of malicious intent in the room. The broodmother’s carapace glowed red just as a shockwave blew out from her, throwing Falla, Taka, Gwydd, and Carver to the ground. Falla regained her feet, watched, agape, as red lyrium crystals erupted from the broodmother’s shoulders, cascaded down the lines of her body like faults in the earth. A sinister crackling sound filled the air, caused by scales of red lyrium rippling up each and every tentacle, surrounding it like armor. In the background, she heard Gwydd’s lurid swears.

Falla’s breath caught in her throat; her next shot went wide. She corrected herself immediately, angry at herself for being distracted, and made a darkspawn’s brains splatter out the back of its head with her next arrow. She had a second arrow nocked and drawn before the darkspawn had even finished falling, the tip tracking the path of the next.

Rith, focused and unperturbed, continued to climb, inflicting twin-fanged agony upon the broodmother with each subsequent jump. Kenric struck mortal blow after mortal blow, feet light on the ground just out of reach of her spindly arm, laying her body open with steel and flame, and yet the monster kept on. “Make her yell!” Rith hollered down to Kenric, whose only response was to put up his shield and brace himself against a torrent of vomit.

“That works!” In one movement Rith sheathed a dagger, reached into Falla’s satchel, and chucked a stoppered vial as hard as he could into the broodmother’s mouth.

Glass crunched as she closed it, an involuntary motion. Fire spilled from the closed-bud seams of her mouth, and when she opened it to scream, the inside of it was blistered and fiery, dripping with flames. Words in a language Falla did not know ripped venomous into the air; the broodmother’s voice was different now, more girlish, sweet. Heedless, Rith pulled another container out, set his feet, and heaved himself upwards, stabbing his knife sideways into the broodmother’s neck, riding out the sinuous roll of her pain. With his other hand he smashed a round glass grenade directly into her eyes.

Falla felt the heat of the explosion on her eyeballs. A piercing wail lanced through the smoke; a second followed just a second later, more muffled. Pungent gray smoke wreathed the broodmother’s head, obscuring Rith, but Falla could see yellow and orange light inside the cloud, evidence of yet another incendiary going off. Another shriek, weaker this time, reached Falla’s ears.

Kenric emerged from the smoke, half-dragging Rith behind him, his fingers curled around the neck of Rith’s breastplate. The other dwarf stumbled along, only just keeping his feet; he was bare-handed, his face sooty. The flap of Falla’s satchel gaped wide open. With a sharp, determined movement Rith threw off Kenric’s hand, reached into the bag, and hurled a grenade at the broodmother, arms and shoulders and hips working in perfect alignment, the innocuous glass sphere arcing in a beautiful parabola. 

If his intention was to hit her, then Rith failed miserably. The grenade contacted the ground in a pool of the acidic vomit and broke in a gout of flame.

To Falla’s utter surprise and delight, the entire bile-soaked area caught fire like dry tinder, became a thunderous, ferocious storm of burning flesh and screams, peppered with the severe, sharp pops of red lyrium flying apart.

“Look at that,” Kenric muttered, leaning on his still-bright sword, watching the pyre, pinching his nose shut at the scent of her dying. “They’re flammable on the inside.”

Rith’s only response was to laugh until he was out of breath. “But what about…what about…”

Falla lowered her bow, confident that no more baby darkspawn would be emerging. “What about other darkspawn, captain?”

“One thing at a time,” Kenric said. “What the shit. What the shit? Rith, get out of that armor before it eats you alive.” He cast aside his shield; it rang hollow and warped, and Falla could see the scores and holes where the broodmother’s acid had contacted it.

“Not funny, Kenric,” Falla said, recalling the red lyrium’s whispers, but she joined Kenric in relieving Rith of his armor, pulling a rag from her rucksack to clean his face.

Gwydd and Carver trotted back to them, armor speckled with gore. “Hero of the day!” Gwydd said to Rith proudly, clapping him hard on his back.

Rith lost his footing, and if it weren’t for Falla and Kenric, would have fallen face first onto the floor. “Well, my prince?” he asked Kenric pointedly once he regained his feet.

“I suppose that’s fair, since we survived.” Kenric began pulling his gauntlets off, but spared enough time to nod approvingly at Rith.

“Damn straight,” Rith muttered, sitting down heavily. Falla caught him right as he toppled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm worn out.


	8. Chapter 8

The memory of the smell would stay with him forever, Kenric was sure. If Rith were in any condition to comment, he would probably pick out all the different scents. The nauseating sweetness of burned flesh. The sour tang of tainted blood, scorched into patterns on the cave floor. The indescribable vapor of red lyrium, half-melted in gruesome lumps on top of the broodmother’s charred, ruined corpse. And over it all the too-familiar putrescence of darkspawn.

But Rith wasn’t in any condition to comment. He was propped up groggily against Falla, who was holding him, a hawkish, possessive look on her features as she watched the Grey Wardens search the chamber. They made their sweep quickly, picking their way over shattered stone and darkspawn carcasses, then disappeared down an adjoining hallway. Kenric spied the flare of torchlight as the tunnel swallowed them, the warm, flickering circle moving away.

They returned quickly, faces set and grim. Carver accepted a tin bowl from Taka as they approached, and had the torch put out by the time they reached where Kenric and the squad were resting. 

“I’d ask for a report,” Kenric said, “but I think it’s best if we got out of here.”

“Agreed,” Taka said. “At the very least, for some fresher air.”

Kenric took hold of Rith's left shoulder, then motioned for Gwydd to take the right. Together they hauled Rith to his feet, supporting his weight between them, exiting the cavern, walking quickly through the humming press of the throne room. As they passed the dais Kenric realized belatedly that the red lyrium had grown through the corpses and into the base of the throne, the crimson threads of it spreading like malignant blood vessels, turning the area tumescent and cancerous. He shuddered at the slow, bloated pulses of light that emanated from the lyrium, shook his head vigorously in an attempt to keep his mind clear.

The air in the main hall was indeed cooler, though Kenric could still catch whiffs of smoky foulness every now and then. Falla found a place to set the glow lanterns adjacent to the statues, placing them so that the light would pool together. Kenric and Gwydd set Rith down in the brightest spot; the suffusion of light served only to highlight the lines of exhaustion around his mouth and eyes. Wordless, Falla took a seat next to him, her back to the wall, and let Rith lean against her. After a moment she reached into her pack and withdrew the geode, closing her eyes, touching it to her forehead.

Gwydd settled onto the floor with an oof and a grumble. "That was some good swording you did back there, Carver." A grunt of appreciation followed.

"Thank you, Gwydd. I have been told I am a good sworder. You axed excellently." The selfsame grunt, returned.

"Thank _you_ , I'm a good axer. Your warden partner is a pretty good arrower too." A slight nod of acknowledgment in Taka’s direction.

"I've noticed that Falla also is a good arrower." An impressed nod, Carver’s mouth pulling into an approving frown.

"She's the _best_ arrower." Pride, pure pride.

"I agree, she's one of the best I've seen. Reminds me of someone I once knew, just without the piety and righteousness.”

"I think she's better than Sebastian, Carver." Taka grinned. "Imagine what he would say to being beaten by a dwarf. Ma -"

"- ker - "

"Noooooooooo!" the two humans chorused, then fell into gales of ugly laughter even as Kenric and the dwarves looked on in mute confusion.

“What’s so funny?” Falla asked as Carver rested his forehead between his thumb and forefinger, wheezing quietly, shoulders shaking.

Taka coughed, took in a deep breath. “Inside joke about a person so devout he put the Bride of the Maker's countenance on his crotch.”

Gwydd’s bark of laughter ricocheted off the walls and disappeared into the shadowy, high ceiling of the thaig. “He did what?”

“Put a likeness of Andraste’s face on his belt buckle.” Carver snickered loudly and wiped at his eyes.

“Was she pretty at least?” Kenric grinned. “So that the blasphemy would be worth it when rising to the occasion.”

“Captain!” Taka gasped. “I never knew you had it in you.”

Carver drew his sword from his sheath, accepted a stone from Gwydd. “I couldn’t say. I’m not the type to let my eyes linger there.”

Kenric laughed quietly, then leaned his head back to rest it against the wall, one hand loosely holding the pommel of his sword. He closed his eyes, sighing as thoughts welled up in his mind. Falla's instincts had been right, of course. Nothing good had come of finding the source of the red lyrium despite the broodmother being dead. He wasn't even sure if they had truly found the source; the Grey Wardens had yet to make their report.

As much as he wanted to be told what they’d found, now was the time, Kenric knew, to calculate risk and make a decision. The Grey Wardens had finished the encounter none the worse for wear. Carver's blade was forged from silverite; it had performed admirably against the tentacles, and needed only some time and love with the stone. Gwydd's axe was notched, the spike on the back bent, but Kenric wasn’t too concerned. Gwydd with a sharp weapon was only slightly more dangerous than Gwydd with a blunt weapon. As long as something existed for him to channel his strength into destruction - an axe, two axes, a longsword, fists even - Gwydd would be fine. He among all of them was the best and most adept at hitting things.

Taka and Falla had declined to retrieve arrows once the bonfire had been reduced to a sleepy, dull red. There might have been a few that escaped the conflagration, but to find them would mean walking the field, bending close to darkspawn bodies with the smell of char fresh in their nostrils, taking the time to inspect the integrity of the shafts. Despite the skill they had both demonstrated - they had taken down darkspawn at damn near a one arrow to one body ratio - they had between them only a dozen arrows or so. 

A sharp ripping sound caught Kenric's attention, and he opened his eyes to see Falla, her hands and teeth fastened on a piece of thick cloth, tearing it into a strip about a handspan wide. As he kept watching she took one of Rith's knives off his belt and carefully cut a slit on each end.

"Straps," she said, and Rith handed over a makeshift rope made of thinner strips of cloth, braided together. Kenric recognized them as being formerly of the rag Falla had used to clean Rith’s face. Falla frowned in concentration as she worked and was soon finished, sitting up straight, swinging the sling back and forth, testing its weight. She stood, looking around.

"Crude, but it might work,” Kenric said, observing. “There were some decent-sized pieces of rubble in the throne room.” A beat as he thought of how the red lyrium twisted over and through the rock, parasitic. "I know, I know. Do you want me to get them for you?"

She shook her head and drew a long knife from the sheath at her belt. "I'll do it. I’ll be back soon, it won’t take long. Just testing.”

“Be careful, Falla.” Kenric kept his eyes on her as she disappeared around one of the statues, then leaned back against the wall, sighing again. He stole a look at Rith; the younger dwarf, freed of his armor, had decided to lie down, head pillowed on his rucksack. That was, Kenric thought, one of the other pressing concerns. Rith’s armor, having borne the brunt of several explosions as well as some acid, had been too damaged from the fight. Parts of it had been singed to uselessness, and others were ridden with holes. They had left it lying in the entrance to the lair. Rith had only his underpadding now, and not even a pair of gloves.

That left Kenric himself. His shield was in the same state as Rith’s armor, its integrity weakened after taking too many blasts of vomit. Kenric wondered idly if it were possible to salvage anything from the dwarven bodies lying about; there were plenty of them, if anything, and if they could be lucky enough to find the single blood-attuned sword that was keyed to him, perhaps they could find a magical shield, and armor that fit. He had lost a few pieces as well; one of his rarebraces was gone, victim of an unfortunate splash he had luckily avoided catching on his face, and one vambrace and glove. They had been so soaked in darkspawn blood that Kenric had no choice but to let them keep Rith’s things company.

A team of six, now down about half strength. Kenric didn’t like the odds, didn’t like how the wardens hadn’t sensed the broodmother long before they encountered her. There was much to dislike about being down in this unnamed, time-lost thaig, and that was without the threat of the darkspawn. With them, however… If Kenric were the betting sort he would have put money on another encounter or two before they could leave.

Kenric turned his head to watch Taka, who was also sitting with his back to the wall, one knee up, arm propped atop it. Taka was staring up at the ceiling, his neck bared; he swallowed, and the apple of his throat bobbed.

“Copper for your thoughts,” said Kenric. “I recognize gears turning when I see them.”

Taka rolled the back of his skull on the wall, his eyes flicking to the side. Kenric met his gaze steadily. “You’re right,” the human said simply. “I was doing some thinking. I’m afraid none of this is coincidental.”

“Meaning?” Kenric asked, but he could guess at what Taka would say next. The lyrium, the talking darkspawn, and the spawning grounds were all related. It could not be happenstance.

“Well, our meeting was coincidental. Finding the thaig was accidental. But the red lyrium - we’ve seen it seeded, planted deliberately into the ground and into people. The lyrium we’re seeing here hasn’t taken over the entire thaig yet, so either it is fairly new or this is a strain of lyrium that does not grow as the others have.” Taka pursed his lips and exhaled. “We have had no reports of darkspawn and red lyrium in proximity with each other, much less red lyrium being implanted in darkspawn. The broodmother herself was awakened as well.” He paused to shudder.

“Someone or something is acting behind the scenes, Kenric. I can see the motion of the pieces on the board, but cannot see the hand itself. What will happen next? Awakened darkspawn with minds of their own, birthed in that state by the broodmother. Red lyrium to enhance strength and speed. A base long-abandoned, unknown until we chanced upon it.” Taka closed his eyes. “But what for? An army of these upgraded darkspawn is magnificently terrifying. But the Architect is dead. What is the thinking behind this, who is pulling the strings? What is the purpose, other to wreak havoc and destruction? The darkspawn do those things well enough. Why go further?”

“I don’t know,” Kenric said, the words pitiful against Taka’s barrage, “but I do have a question relating to the awakened darkspawn and your ability to sense them.”

Carver’s eyes, widening with alarm, were the only warning Kenric got before Taka said, “We can’t.”

Anger, prickling and bitter. Kenric made a fist and almost snarled his displeasure. “What do you mean, you can’t?” His voice was the sound of stone on stone.

“I don’t know when Carver realized, but as soon as we saw the broodmother…” This time, Taka looked weary. "They're awakened. It means they've been freed of the leash linking them to the hive mind, to the archdemon. They still have the Taint, and we can sense them a little if there are enough of them together, but the singing we can hear when we draw close?"

Carver shook his head once, left-right. "There is none."

Taka continued, "Actually, this is pertinent to what we found in the tunnel." 

Kenric's scowl deepened. "Are you always going to be the bearer of bad news?"

"How did you know it was bad?" quipped Taka, smiling, but in the next second he was serious again. "I am not quite sure how to say this other than I believe Carver and I found the source of the blood needed for awakening. An elven Grey Warden, imprisoned for Maker knows how long." He sighed softly, gravely. "Maker rest her soul. Or Creators rest her soul."

Carver bit his lip, his mouth pursing hard, as if that simple movement alone could hold back the emotions plainly written on his face. It was too late, Kenric thought, like trying to dam a culvert already overflowing. 

"It is a mercy that she's dead." Carver’s blue eyes were icy.

"Did you...?" Kenric asked, the notion of her being alive still a horrifying one.

"We did. She asked for it, as soon as she saw us. She was already mostly a ghoul, half-mad with the Calling." Taka's fingers brushed the quillions of the shortsword he bore. "Her name was Velanna. They had been using her blood to awaken darkspawn for years, I think. I wish we could have gotten more answers, helped her somehow, but she was largely incoherent. There was naught else we could do. I did not want to stay my hand further."

"We will need to check her name in the Book and add the final entry, if we get out of here." Carver's words were murmured, directed inward.

"When we get out of here," Taka corrected his partner. "It is not my time yet, Carver. Neither is it yours. Nor any of our companions." Taka gave each and every one of them a hard look; Kenric met the human's lightly-tilted brown eyes without blinking.

"Aye," Kenric said eventually. "That I agree with. If there are no other sources of warden blood, barring you two, then we have just struck the mastermind a blow and bought us some time. We can resupply and regroup, then come back with reinforcements. With the broodmother dead, he or she may get desperate and over-reach."

Taka nodded his assent. "If we can find the rest of our party, Maker willing, then we can come back, and root out whatever is festering in this place. There is more to discover, I know it. We did not dare see what was at the other side of the tunnel with just us two, but if we can find out a little more - I'm so close, Kenric, I can almost see the whole picture."

Kenric grunted. "You'll have to stay on the brink for a while longer, lad. We are in no condition to fight."

"You're right," Taka said, "and - what's that sound?"

"I don't hear anything," Gwydd rumbled, but he picked up the stone Carver had lain on the floor, slipped it back into his pack, and grasped the haft of his axe.

"Quiet." Kenric held up a hand and closed his eyes, straining his ears. Footsteps, booted feet pounding fast in the cadence of a run, approaching. He felt a stab of dread through his heart, felt it bloom through his chest, an implosion that robbed him of breath. Falla had been gone too long.

A scream broke out, shattering the stillness. “Kenric! Rith! Gwy -”

“Falla!” Rith shouted, and the sheer panic in his voice was like the mighty pound of a hammer on glass, splintering Kenric’s emotions, goading him to action. Rith gained his feet as if jolted, his fatigue forgotten, and sprinted for the throne room, his fists gleaming fangs. 

"Falla!" he shouted again, the pitch of his voice climbing, his fear escalating. “Falla!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are love.


	9. Chapter 9

“Falla!" Rith shouted once more, her name leaving his lips, breaking in half.

Taka snatched up his bow and quiver, leaving his pack behind, pelting after the rest of the squad as they followed Rith. For a split second he was grateful he hadn't unstrung his bow, that he wouldn't have to waste precious seconds to prep it. As he ran he got the strap of the quiver securely around him. He rounded the corner in lockstep with Carver, passed the tall statues, plucked an arrow out, and nocked it before he was three strides in.

"Fuckin' shit!" Gwydd was yelling, his greataxe clutched in both hands. The larger dwarf was but a step behind Rith as they hurled themselves forward. "Falla, _shit!"_

They had her.

She was there in a clump of darkspawn, held at shoulder level, the group retreating rapidly back towards the broodmother's cave. The mail of Falla's shirt caught the light of the red lyrium as she struggled, but Taka did not need a visual to confirm what he knew just by listening. Falla, her words likely swears obscured by her fury, was being carried away.

He could almost taste the dwarves’ terror, their snarling fear and desperation at one of their own being under threat. Gwydd’s shouts had gotten the attention of the group, and as they turned Taka felt his heart sinking. He sensed nothing from them - no singing, no answering surge of the Taint, nothing but the bleak certainty that these awakened darkspawn were not going to die easily upon his blade. Maker, but there were a lot of them. More than ten, definitely; closer to twenty, perhaps more, and Taka had only a handful of arrows. The odds of Falla escaping her captors were slim at best.

But Taka had seen what Kenric's squad could do, had witnessed for himself their tight rapport and the love they all bore for each other. It was a rare and wonderful thing that they had, and Taka felt his gut clench as he thought of how alive they were, how vibrant and full of spirit they were for a group so dedicated to fatalism. Kenric, Falla, Gwydd, and Rith were one brightly shining unit, and he would see to it to the best of his ability that they would stay that way. The Legion needed heroes like them, needed inspirational figures who would laugh and joke in the face of death, who would mock it, curse at it. 

And so he would fight for them. Taka would fight for them because of how deeply he respected them, how dearly he wanted to protect their bond. He would fight because they were worthy of it, and damn the probabilities. Math, it was all math, arithmetic, and Taka had always been excellent at his sums.

Taka planted his feet, inhaled deep. Every single arrow needed to find its target, needed to be placed precisely, lethal. Squinting, he took in the scene. Falla was being restrained by two shrieks, one of which had no helmet. Easy pickings, thought Taka, drawing his bow to creaking, envisioning the drill of the arrow tip through the forehead, the explosion of gore out the back as the arrow punched through the brain cavity. Every arrow, important and deadly. Every arrow, another opportunity for Falla to fight free.

The helmless shriek dropped like a sack, freeing Falla’s feet. Immediately she went limp, her sudden dead weight causing the other shriek to stumble and trip. They went down hard, and immediately two other darkspawn collapsed on top of them, hands reaching, recoiling when Falla twisted like a snake in her captor’s grip, the heels of her boots landing solidly on the side of a knee.

“Fuck you!” she screamed, her obscenity carrying clearly over the sound of weapons clashing. From in front of him, Taka heard Gwydd's hearty laughter, saw Rith leap and plow into the foremost darkspawn, his speed knocking it down. A split second later Carver smashed into the group's ragged line, his sword a length of silver death slashing low-high across two shrieks, halving them. He fought like his name, leaving a rain of blood in the wake of his ferocious, powerful strikes. The darkspawn cowered before him, shocked at the purity of his rage, the elemental physicality of his brutal work, and in their moment of hesitation, Carver ended them.

"We're comin', Falla!" Gwydd joined the fight from the other side, his axe an arc of destruction around him. Taka saw the formation as he drew back to fire, saw Rith working the point of the attack, his arms a scything whirl, saw Carver and Gwydd on either side of the group, pinioning the darkspawn between them, saw Kenric bearing down on the center, his face dark with murderous intent, his sword brilliant runic flame.

"Take her, quickly!" rang a voice, inhuman and slurred, the phonemes blobby and distorted by a malformed mouth. In the center of the mass of darkspawn stood a hurlock, waving a sword above his head. He pointed it at the tunnel. "The Seeker! Take her to the Seeker!"

It was a choice between the darkspawn surrounding Falla and the leader of the group. Taka opted for subtraction, a betterment of her chances; his arrow sprouted from the chest of her captor. She crowed as it fell, a hard and cutting sound, and knives appeared in her now-freed hands. "Fuck the Seeker!" she taunted, stabbing into a genlock.

Or she would have, if another genlock hadn't grabbed her arm and wrested it toward its mouth. Taka saw the baring of its hideous teeth as they snapped into her wrist. Falla cried out, her hand seizing in pain, and dropped the knife. But even while taking injury, some part of her fighting instinct kept on. With her other hand she drove the point of her dagger into the side of its neck, yanked it all the way across.

Blood spurted out, black with the taint, and splashed straight into her eyes.

Falla's scream was more of a wail, high and quavering, a terrifying sound full of agony. She shrieked again, wordless, her knife falling from fingers that dug frantically at her eyes. Blood smeared as she swiped her face with the heel of her palm, her mouth open, slack with the keening gasps that tore through it. In that moment, as Taka's next arrow struck home in the base of the hurlock leader's throat, Taka knew that they had gambled and lost.

"Falla!" Rith's hoarse yell ripped at Taka's heart, set it to breaking. "Falla, no! No! No! _NO!"_

It was futile. Despite the number of dead and dying darkspawn, there were still too many of them, and too much distance. Taka let fly another arrow, reached into his quiver - two, there were only two arrows left - and grasped the hilt of his sword instead, pulling it from its sheath. He charged anyway, bow in one hand, sword in the other, thought irrationally that he might run into the darkspawn so hard that he'd flatten them all. The idea deserted him as a hurlock drove an armored fist into Falla's face, lifted her up and slung her over its shoulder, and took off towards the tunnel. 

Kenric's roar of outrage was palpable, the intensity of it making the darkspawn flinch and shrink back, but all Taka could think about was how fast the hurlock was running, and where he would have to aim if he wanted any chance at hitting a moving target. All he had to do was incapacitate it. He had two arrows left. It was not entirely impossible.

And then Falla raised her voice, the strength of her will manifesting in it, stunning in its command. "The Stone!" she bellowed, and at that Taka heard Rith's responding cry, a thing of complete despair. "Return me!"

"Return her!" Kenric took up the call, slashing at a hurlock, his sword shearing through his opponent's blade as it parried. "To the Stone! To the Stone!"

"To the Stone!" Gwydd shouted, and Kenric and Gwydd were chanting together, a litany. "To the Stone! To the Stone!"

Rith's sobs, raw and bitter, threaded into the air.

Taka flung down his sword, found the fletching of his penultimate arrow with his fingers. Andraste help him, but it was heavy, so heavy, his body screaming at him even as he fit the notch into the string, tilted the bow at an angle, drew the arrow so far back that he thought his arm muscles would burst. "To the Stone!" the dwarves demanded. "To the Stone!"

"To the Stone, Falla," Taka murmured, sighting, exhaling.

"Falla!" Gwydd yelled so hard that the cords of his neck stood out. Tears streamed down his reddened cheeks. "I FUCKING LOVE NUGS!"

Her head jerked up, her features a ruin. A sudden smile, bright as lyrium's glow, and the fear fell away from her face.

Taka's arrow took her right between the eyes.

The hurlock threw Falla’s still-twitching body to the ground, pivoted on its foot. Taka gasped raggedly at the sheer disrespect, his fingers finding the feathers of his last arrow, but before he could do anything else he saw something hurtle towards the darkspawn and bury itself in its chest. “Falla!” Rith howled, but her name left his throat unfinished, changed into sagging, moaning vowels, open with grief. The dwarf fought on with a single knife, staggering desolate through attacks; Kenric moved to cover his left side, skewering a darkspawn mercilessly through its head. The throne room now was eerily silent save for the scrape of footwork and the ringing of swords. As he fought, Taka realized it was Gwydd’s laugh he was missing.

Butchery, cold and clinical, the last of the math, the difference dwindling to zero. The remaining darkspawn tried to flee once faced with implacable wrath, but the dwarves gave no quarter. Taka stunned a genlock with a pommel strike as it turned; Gwydd, his eyes glowing red with reflected lyrium light, hamstrung it messily, then crushed its head into pulp with his boot, blood and brains squirting across the floor. Carver was relentless, chasing the final two darkspawn down, separating heads from shoulders within the radius of his sword swing.

“Maker,” he said, and Taka heard the tremble in his voice. “Maker, did we really have to…”

Kenric and Gwydd said nothing, closing ranks around Rith’s kneeling form. Taka covered his mouth with his hand as he listened to the dwarf’s wracking sobs, not knowing what to do other than remain still, and allow Rith the opportunity to occupy his sorrow. Slowly, Rith curled in on himself, and his forehead touched Falla’s lips in a final kiss.

“Rest well, Falla,” Kenric said, pulling his glove off, pressing his hand to his eyes. “I return you to the Stone, in the eyes of the First Paragon. _Atrast…”_

Gwydd began to weep loudly, and sank to his knees.

“Come on, Gwydd. Rith.” In spite of the tears running freely down his face, Kenric’s voice was remarkably level. “ _Atrast tunsha.”_ Taka saw Rith’s hands tighten into fists. When next Kenric spoke, it was in chorus with Gwydd and Rith. _“Atrast tunsha. Totarnia amgetol tavash aeduc.”_

Then finally Kenric knelt, and lowered his head to mourn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always appreciated, loves.


	10. Chapter 10

"We will need," Kenric said numbly, "we will need to move her body to a better place."

He wiped the tears from his eyes, wiped again. He stared at Falla, at the blood drying on her face, at the arrow shaft jutting up just above the bridge of her nose. But for that detail Kenric could imagine that she was simply knocked out, that at any second her eyes would spring open and she would draw a great breath and come to, groaning. "What the fuck hit me?" he could hear her saying, and her voice was so loud in his head that he had to look at her lips to see if they moved. Only the continual reminder of the arrow lodged deep in her brain quelled the thought.

 _Ancestors_ , Kenric prayed, _Ancestors, the Stone, take your daughter._ She had been the best of them, Kenric thought, and cursed himself for already thinking in past tense. He had seen too much of death to romanticize it, returned too many bodies to be overly affected by the violent and premature cessation of life, had been forced to move on more times than he would have liked. This was the burden he had accepted upon becoming a legionnaire, and the knowledge of that responsibility had prepared him for the inevitable, so he’d thought. His previous failures had hurt, naturally. But Falla - Falla, she was the heart of his team, the glue that held them all together, the center around which they all arrayed themselves. Without her, there was only death and grief.

Grief, so much grief. Kenric reached out and touched the arrow, feeling empty, as if his skin were a shell barely containing the yawning cavern of his loss. Kenric wanted to cry like Rith and Gwydd, wanted to sob and rend his beard and grind his forehead into the floor, wanted his words to be a chain of curses, cracked in half at the vowel, uttered seconds apart, divided by gasps. And for a time he allowed himself this, to stay kneeling with the best family he had ever known, wondering how they would fit back together with the central piece missing.

He lifted his head. Kenric wished fervently for time to stop so that he could keep mourning his friend, so that he could put aside the mantle of leadership for a while longer. But they were in the Deep Roads, and his sense of danger was growing. It took three tries for Kenric to snap the arrow shaft and cast it aside, three tries before Kenric could stand back up, his feet and ankles leaden. Rith raised his tear-tracked face to Kenric's and shook his head, but Kenric just stuck his hand out and motioned at him.

“Can’t you give them more time, Kenric?” asked Carver, hushed, his voice small.

“I want to,” replied Kenric, getting his hands under Gwydd’s armpits, hauling his boneless form to his feet. “But I can’t.” He let Gwydd lean against him, tensed his body to hold the larger dwarf’s bulk. 

He spoke as Gwydd wiped his tears away. “Up, Rith. The wardens can’t sense the darkspawn and we all know there are more coming.”

“Captain,” Carver said, coming to Kenric, bridging the distance, bowing before him. “Please allow me to carry her. It would be my honor.”

Kenric managed a nod, suddenly unable to speak.

Carver bent down, slipped his arms under Falla’s neck and knees. With delicate grace he stood, cradling her easily, carefully, in the crooks of his elbows. It was with shock that Kenric noted how small Falla was compared to Carver, how much like a sleeping child she looked in his arms. Her personality had always been bigger than her frame would allow, and it warped the proportions of her body until Kenric accepted that she was of a size with the rest of them. In death, without the flame of her spirit, she appeared shrunken and diminished. Such an insult, he thought.

Kenric put himself in the middle of the colonnade, turned for the entrance, and started walking solemnly toward it. The rest of the party fell in behind him, a small funeral procession. Halfway to the archway he snuck a glance backwards, saw how Rith followed Carver, head and shoulders slumped, face dulled. Kenric pressed his lips together to keep from crying, and kept on.

“There,” he said once they had exited, indicating a cleared brazier plinth. The brazier itself had been toppled onto its side, and beneath it were several skeletons. Carver set Falla’s body down gently, straightened out her arms and legs, smoothed her hair. Once he was finished he bowed again.

Taka was next, bowing as Carver had. He said nothing at first, and instead extended a fingertip towards her head, touching the jagged end of the arrow shaft. “I’m sorry,” the Grey Warden whispered. "You were a warrior to the very last. You chose your time, and that is all we can ask for down here."

He bowed again and stepped back, allowing Gwydd to take his place. For long moments Gwydd shifted from foot to foot, fists shaking with tremors, refusing to confront the body before him. 

"Fuck you, Falla," he said abruptly, and Kenric was both surprised and not to hear the anger curling tight in his words. "Fuck you, you know? How could you? Finding your second death first. Going somewhere without me and Rith and Kenric. That's some nugshit you left us. And now look, you're too fuckin' high up on this stone thing. I can't even see you right." 

Gwydd paused to take in an unsteady breath. "Well, you better fuckin' wait. Don’t go meetin’ the paragons without us. Because we're coming sooner or later."

Kenric put his hand on Gwydd's shoulder, pressed down upon it in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. "It's true, Falla," he said, and Gwydd nodded sharply. "We'll see you again. You were right. About everything." 

He stopped and smiled sadly. "I should have known." 

And he should have listened. Falla had expressed her concern and Kenric had dismissed it. He should have listened like a good leader, should have given her hesitancy more weight, because when had Falla ever been afraid of anything? It was his poor leadership that had gotten them into this situation, and thanks to him Falla would have to stay in this Stone-cursed place, without even a proper burial to honor her.

He didn't notice when Gwydd left, nor when Rith replaced him. "It isn't your fault, Kenric," the younger dwarf said quietly, and Kenric gasped, jolted out of his thoughts. "There wasn't...you couldn't control the situation. She chose her way out." Rith's jaw clenched around a sob; his eyes screwed shut for a moment, the features of his face all collapsing into a point, as if he could check his emotions through that action alone. 

Eventually control was won, but Rith’s words came haltingly anyway. "She was always scared she'd lose us first. 'Look how stupid Gwydd is half the time,' she said." 

From behind them came a bark of laughter and an oath. 

"It's true, Gwydd,” Rith retorted, head and shoulders twisting around. “Shut up."

A minute as both Kenric and Rith wrestled with their sadness. Then Rith lifted his hand, and Kenric saw how tightly he was clutching one of Falla’s arrows. He placed it beside her body. "Can I…?" he murmured.

"Of course." Kenric backed away and returned to the wall where their belongings still sat. The Grey Wardens were already packed and ready, rucksacks on shoulders, weapons stowed.

"Gwydd." Kenric indicated Falla's pack. "Divide the provisions. We're getting out of here, we’re done with this. I don't want to stay any longer than we have to." He turned his attention to the wardens. "How did you get down here? Is it close, can we take that route?"

Taka's lips flattened into a line, his brows drawing down slightly. He shook his head. "I'm afraid it was a one-way trip, captain."

"All right, then we backtrack." Kenric squinted at Taka. "Can you...sense anything?"

The warden snorted. "The answer is still no. So we'd better leave quickly in case anything else comes. The emissary said something... the Seeker? Who is the Seeker? Is he the one behind all of this?"

Kenric stared at the human, and wished he had the same ability to compartmentalize. "Did you want to find out?"

Taka's gaze was steady as he stared back. "In a way, I do. For Falla."

He growled. "This is not vengeance, human."

"Isn't it though, Kenric? Isn't it? Don't you want to kill something? Wouldn't you like to make sure this situation doesn't happen again?" 

_Oh_ , Kenric thought. Taka was cold underneath all that charm. 

"We have slain the broodmother and the warden needed for awakening,” Taka explained. “Falla herself took away the opportunity for a new broodmother to be created. Thank the Maker for her bravery and her smarts." He glanced over at Rith. Kenric looked too, reflexively. "We have struck deadly blows against this Seeker. He is the last piece, I am sure of it." A determined set came over Taka's face. "I propose we find him and end him. Stop all this madness, burn this plot to the ground, stem and root."

"He'll be looking for us," Carver added. "He has to be. After the damage we caused, there is no way he can ignore us."

"Yes," said Taka, "like it or not, he will be coming. We have the choice to fight, or flee this place knowing that there is unfinished business. We can come back with reinforcements, but there is no guarantee that the Seeker will not have moved his operation elsewhere. This plan is...nefarious." Taka sighed. "That's the only word I can come up with to describe it. It's sinister, this combination. Red lyrium. Awakened darkspawn able to think and speak and reason. Do you really want to leave any part of it? It may mean our lives, but..." A small smile. "Someone has inspired me."

"Kenric," started Gwydd.

"No." His hands balled into fists.

"He has a point," Gwydd continued.

"No!" Louder this time, more emphatic. Caution was what was needed now, a tactical retreat, sound decision making. No more unmitigated risks.

"It's what Falla would want." Rith's voice now, subdued yet strong.

"NO!" Kenric shouted, and the rage in him shot to the surface, split his sorrow in two, subsumed it. "No! I will not allow it! Don’t you dare use her against me Rith, I will not lose any more of you to - to _this_ , whatever the fuck it is. I won't have it, do you understand? No more deaths on my watch, not like this!"

His breath, fast and heaving, kept the silence at bay. When had he drawn his sword? He didn't recall.

"Kenric." Rith touched his shoulder, pushed his sword hand down. "This is who we are. This is our _choice._ Falla - ancestors, _help._ Falla made her choice. You didn't question it at the time. Let us make ours. You didn't listen before. Listen to us now."

"Rith," Kenric warned, "if you don't move now, you're getting a punch to the face."

"My prince," Rith said, and Kenric let fly.

Gwydd shoved Rith aside, took the full force of Kenric's leather-clad fist on his cheek. He staggered and almost fell, laughing as he regained his feet. "You ugly bastard, Kenric," he said, taunting, pulling off his glove, probing his face. "Listen to your fucking team, will you? Shit. Astyth's stitches, fuckin' shit. You hit hard." Gwydd spat blood, then grinned, his teeth stained a macabre red.

Kenric drew in a deep breath and did his best to put his feelings in a box, the way Taka did. "I meant to, you fuckwit."

"Couldn't let that happen, _your majesty._ "

"You all have some mouths, the fucking lot of you." Kenric slammed his sword back into its sheath and tried to calm his breathing. He opened and shut his hand, flexed it, shook it out. Gwydd's head had always been unreasonably hard. 

"I'm sorry, Gwydd."

Gwydd's blue eyes shone with intensity. "For what?"

"For punching you."

"Didn't feel a thing."

Carver laughed loudly, the glow lantern he held shaking with the force of it. "Maker. I wish my family had been like this. Even a tiny bit."

"Same," said Taka. "So, captain, what will you do now? Will the Grey Wardens and the Legion of the Dead join forces yet again to defeat the darkspawn?"

Air gusted out from Kenric's nostrils. "No."

Kenric saw the disappointment written openly on their faces, saw in their eyes excitement flickering to life, then guttering out.

He made his decision then.

"No, Grey Warden. We shall not join forces.” Kenric approached the pair, holding an arm out, waiting for the clasp of hands, the firm pressure of agreement. “For this, you and Carver are both Legion of the Dead." 

Taka had been right. And Carver, and Gwydd, and Rith. Kenric sighed inwardly, resigned, not knowing how he could have read Falla so poorly. Even in death, she remained his better. " _Amgarrak._ It means victory in Dwarven. We go to find it, now. Let's seek this Seeker asshole."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are love. <3


	11. Chapter 11

“So where will we go?” Taka asked, fingering the top of his bow, sliding the pad of his thumb over the string.

Kenric lowered his head and thought for a moment. “You said there was a tunnel you hadn’t finished exploring.”

Carver nodded. “Yes, past the broodmother chamber. Where we found Warden Velanna. There was an end, and a room beyond, but we didn’t investigate further.”

“Sounds like a good place to start,” muttered Kenric, and Taka noted the sudden tired cast of his eyes, the deepened lines of his face. Gwydd and Rith too, drawn and puffy, felt smaller, less vibrant. For their sorrow, the dwarves had gained years. 

“Gwydd, is everything divided?” Kenric asked.

“The fuck do you think?” the warrior snarled in return.

Kenric gave him a strange look. When he spoke, it was slowly, and with concern. “Easy now, lad.”

“Don’t tell me to take it easy, Kenric.” Gwydd shouldered his pack and glowered. “Let’s just go kill that Stone-cursed bastard.”

“That I can agree with,” said Kenric.

They retraced their footsteps, Rith steadfastly looking anywhere but at the darkspawn bodies when they passed by. Taka held his breath when they entered the broodmother's lair, focused on getting through it as quickly as possible. The tunnel on the other side wasn’t that far, he told himself, counting down the paces until they reached it, parceling out each lungful of pestilent air step by step.

He breathed gratefully once they were well within its confines. "There," he said when Velanna's cage came into sight. It was crudely constructed, built into an alcove, with twisted iron bars fitted into roughly-drilled holes in the rock. The smell of filth filled his nose, and when he fixed his eyes on the floor in an attempt to divorce his mind from the stench, he saw the outlines of stains running from the cage, traveling the distance to the opposite wall. Taka's chest swelled with pity when Kenric knelt by Velanna’s body; she rested against the bars, slumped over, and beneath her was an unnaturally small pool of blood, thick and meager. Her frame was clearly emaciated beneath the tattered, scored fragments of her armor, and clumps of her fine, light hair were missing from her head, likely from malnutrition. Not for the first time, Taka wondered how long she had been a captive.

As he watched, Taka recalled the warm parchment of her skin when he'd touched her, the spider silk of her hair when he'd steadied her head. “Do it,” she had told him, bared her stomach and chest for him, put herself flush with the bars of her cage. Taka had stared directly into her eyes as he drew his knife. A warden deserved no less than to confront her own death.

There was little resistance. Velanna had sighed, and thanked him with her last breath. Taka sighed too, expelling every last bit of air from his body. Little had he known at the time that his role would be that of deliverer. 

His thoughts returned to the present, and he sighed yet again. First Velanna, then Falla. Taka was tired of killing blows.

"What's this?" Kenric said softly, and motioned the dwarves closer. Gwydd's eyes fell to Velanna's body, his face twisting with anger, but he said nothing, only scratched fiercely at his arm.

"Give me some light," Kenric ordered Rith, pointing to a spot in the back, shrouded in shadow. Rith maneuvered the stick of the glow lantern into the cage, angled it so that Kenric could see beyond Velanna’s body. The gentle circle of light squeezed through the bars and flowed in, illuminating some old, faded papers, and hunks of moldy, dry flatbread.

"Is that...?" Kenric murmured, leaning in, pressing his face to the bars. "Rith, what's that look like to you?"

"Rations, I think? The kind in the supply caches."

"I thought so too." He sighed heavily, touching his fingertips to the bridge of his nose, pinching it. "Well, that solves a mystery."

"What mystery?" asked Carver, approaching the cage. He murmured something to Rith, who handed over the stick of the lantern. Carver took it, laid the runestone upon the papers, and began dragging them inch by inch towards the bars.

"You know the Legion has supply caches all around the Deep Roads." At Carver's nod, Kenric continued. "Each one of these caches has a mechanism by which it is opened. It isn't terribly complicated to open the caches, but it does take some manner of dexterity and critical thinking. Normally the Legion keeps detailed reports of the contents of the caches, as well as how often they are used, and by whom. Over the last few years, though, we've had caches turn up empty, without the tokens you're supposed to leave when you clear them out."

"Let me guess," Taka said, his mind working, putting two and two together. "You think the awakened darkspawn were raiding the caches to feed Warden Velanna."

A slow nod. "Aye. We all thought there was a forgetful squad captain out there. As it turns out..." Kenric rested a hand gently on Velanna's head. "...the reality is much, much worse."

Carver wiggled his arm through a space between the bars, fingers grasping, and seized the papers after a moment. "Maker's breath," he said, holding the glow lantern over the top sheet. "What the..."

Taka gave his partner a quizzical look. "What is it?"

"Schematics," Carver said slowly, puzzled. "For a jar of...bees."

Taka made a face, completely taken aback. He had to laugh at the absurdity. "What's that doing down here?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Carver replied, straightening to his full height. "Why are we always finding the strangest...?"

"What's a bee?" Gwydd asked. "Why are there plans for a jar of them?"

Taka's laugh spun out, incredulous and breathy. "I keep forgetting you've never been outside."

"We're outside plenty." Gwydd gestured to his surroundings. "We're outside right now."

"The surface, then," Taka responded. "Bees are a kind of insect we have on the surface. Useful, but nasty and painful when provoked, as jarring them would do."

Carver snorted, shuffling to the second page. "Wasps are worse."

"True," Taka agreed. "They're a lot like this squad. Tightly knit, dangerous and social, attacking when one of them is threatened..." His voice trailed off as realization dawned, bringing with it embarassment.

Rith's eyes were blank as he turned his back and began walking towards the end of the tunnel. Gwydd followed, glaring at Taka over his shoulder.

"Well done," Carver said under his breath. "Aren't you supposed to be the smooth one?"

Taka sighed his regrets. He had not meant for his words to come out that way, but when grief was as fresh as theirs, anything might remind them of their loss. "It seems even I have lapses. I should apologize."

Carver finished paging through the stack, his mouth concentrated in a frown. He selected one of the papers and put it in his rucksack, then set the rest back into the cage.

"Useful information?" Taka asked, watching the dwarves distance themselves. Kenric made to join them.

"Codex entry for the Book. Somehow, she managed to write one. With what ink, I don't know. I'm trying not to think about that." He bounced on the balls of his feet, an oddly light move for a man of his height and bulk, and stretched his neck from side to side. "We should keep up with the dwarves."

Taka nodded. "I -" He cut himself off when he saw Kenric gesticulating at them, beckoning at them from the end of the tunnel, one finger to his lips. Puzzled, Taka strode over, keeping his steps as quiet as he could. "What is it?" he whispered at the captain.

Kenric put himself on one side of the tunnel's mouth, pushing up against the wall as if to hide. Gwydd, already there, shuffled out of the way. Kenric pointed, gesturing at something beyond.

Taka stuck his back against the wall, then looked. There, in a large cavern filled with more red lyrium spikes, was assembled a group of darkspawn in orderly rows. Ten across, Taka counted, and five deep, all of them with backs turned, watching a hurlock emissary standing in front, his hands behind his back. He was tall, Taka realized, and wearing a mishmash of armor. Mismatched spaulders decorated each shoulder, and a poorly-fitted leather chestpiece hung from his frame. Underneath it all, Taka swore the darkspawn was wearing mage robes, torn at the knee. Plaideweave leggings peeked out from below the ragged hem. Taka would have laughed at how ridiculous the hurlock looked, if not for the talking.

"Brethren, my kin!" the hurlock declared, his mouth working around wickedly curved, overlarge fangs. His voice was deep, deep and unctuous, a perfect received pronunciation that made Taka's hair stand on end. If the hurlock was making a rousing speech, it certainly was not working. "We will not be made to hide in the earth! We will take Orzammar!"

Kenric waved at him furiously from the other side of the tunnel. _Shoot him_ , he mouthed.

 _What?_ Taka mouthed back, shocked.

Kenric indicated the hurlock with exaggerated head movements, his eyes wide, mouth moving slowly. _See - ker. Shoot. Him. Now._

 _Now?!_ Taka didn't make a sound, but in his head, he was yelling.

 _NOW._ The glare he received was like a slap in the face. 

Capitulating, Taka withdrew his last arrow and unlimbered his bow. His fingers found the nock, settled it over the string. Kenric nodded at him approvingly. _Shoot now. Ask later._

 _All right_ , Taka replied, unsure, but stepped into the room regardless.

Fifty paces and a second was all he had to make the shot. Rhythm was what he needed now, the rhythm of practice so deeply ingrained that the mind could stay unencumbered by thought. He had done this hundreds, thousands of times, had let the repetitive motion soothe his troubles, concerned himself solely with the matter of his arrow hitting the bullseye dead center, of letting his consciousness merge with his bow. Left foot to the fore, body turning to the side. The cool kiss of the arrow shaft against his finger. The workings of his muscles as he inhaled his draw, the knuckle of his right forefinger touching his cheek, the bow lifting, arrowhead pointed at his target. 

And finally, the exhale of release. 

Only after the arrow was fired did Taka pray for it to find its mark.

The Maker was good, and Andraste smiled upon him. Taka's very last arrow struck the Seeker in the head, the tip of it smashing through the bone of his nose bridge with such force that the darkspawn stumbled backwards two steps. "Oh my!" he exclaimed reflexively, and fell to the ground.

As one, the fifty darkspawn troops pivoted, and locked their eyes on him.

"RUN!" Kenric yelled.

Taka turned tail, and fucking ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, tomatoes, flames, all accepted.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my appreciation and thanks to William Goldman's _Marathon Man_ chase scene and Matt de Benham's excellent breakdown/analysis of it. Without that framework I would not have been able to approach this chapter the way I did.

Adrenaline lent them wings. 

Advantage, Kenric thought as he sprinted back up the tunnel, the slams of his feet on the stone juddering up his shins. They knew the terrain. Disadvantage: so did the darkspawn. Advantage: they had discipline and a head start, and the darkspawn, with their malformed and oddly bent bodies, were not the fastest runners.

Disadvantage: the darkspawn would run themselves to death before giving up, and there were a lot of them.

There were a _lot_ of them. Kenric estimated forty at the minimum, probably closer to fifty. Impossible odds. While Kenric would have preferred to kill them all, it wasn’t feasible. Incapacitation beyond the immediate ability of the Taint to heal was what was necessary. But they were a paltry five, and not at full strength. Their only hope was to run, keep running, find the exit, and pray that relief would be waiting on the road. The Stone willing, relief would be there, and if there was anything left in them, they would turn and fight.

“Carver!” Taka gasped. “The ice!”

“Now?!” Carver replied breathlessly, keeping pace with Taka, their longer human legs carrying them well ahead of the dwarves.

“Can’t hurt!” The two wardens broke from the tunnel into the broodmother’s cavern and angled straight for the entrance. “Hurry!” Taka called to Kenric once he got close to the mouth, pausing briefly to gesture, as if the motion would urge them on more than the darkspawn on their heels.

Kenric dug in and put his head down, arms churning. Behind him, he heard the pounding footsteps of Gwydd and Rith. “Keep going, don’t stop!” Taka urged them, falling in with them as they passed. Ahead, Carver was kneeling next to the tunnel with his arm in his rucksack. As they neared he withdrew a curious-looking glass container, cylindrical. Inside it was clear liquid and a second cylinder, also glass, filled with a blue substance. Carver grabbed the handspan-long stopper, pulled it out with a loud pop, then reversed it and drove the end down into the cylinder, smashing the inner container.

Kenric threw a glance over his shoulder, saw the darkspawn burst from the other tunnel, almost falling over themselves in their haste. Carver stood, slinging his rucksack over his shoulders, and began jogging backwards. “Maker guide us,” he muttered, then flung the potion at the ground. The glass broke with a dull crunch.

Ice sprang up instantly, coating the tunnel floor in crystals, spreading frosty tendrils over the stone. Kenric heard the crackle of it as it grew, saw it forming a wall when he looked back again, the chasing darkspawn appearing as bobbing, shadowy blotches through it. He hoped - _Ancestors, please_ \- that it would be inches thick, solid and unyielding, a means for them to gain precious time.

“Go, go! Keep running!” Carver yelled, his voice ringing hollowly, his cadence quickening into a second sprint.

“It worked!” Taka crowed, incredulous, inserting a madcap leap into his stride. “It worked!”

“If we live,” Carver panted, “I’ll kiss your cousin!”

“You can try!” came Taka’s reply, punctuated with a bark of ugly laughter, shot through with the sounds of ice shattering. Kenric sucked down more breaths, ignored the rasp of his chest. The damn wall hadn’t even held for more than a few seconds.

More ice shattered as they fled the reverberations rattling up the walls.

Their pace was unsustainable. The group quit the tunnel and barrelled into the throne room, leapt or circumvented the bodies on the floor. Fifty paces' head start was all they had, a little more now thanks to the ice barrier. With every stride Kenric wanted to widen the gap, but considering the distance they had left, it would be a swift death for them all if they continued running full tilt. 

“Hold, lads!” Kenric commanded once they were halfway across the chamber, slowing his pace. Kenric did his best to push away errant thoughts as he dodged darkspawn corpses, willed away with every gravelly scour of air in his chest the memories that he’d only recorded an hour prior. Taka’s form, textbook perfect. The backwards snap of Falla’s head, the force of Taka’s arrow curving her spine into an improbable arc. The way -

“Double time formation,” he ordered. “Steady now.”

Taka and Carver, breathing hard, leaned hands on knees and hips, and said nothing.

“With me, Rith,” Kenric ordered. “Gwydd, behind. Humans, keep up.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Taka, straightening, arching back in a stretch, then easing back into a loping run.

Kenric raised an eyebrow, skeptical, broke smoothly into the dogtrot that had taken him over miles and miles of the Deep Roads. Rith matched his stride beside him, and over the scuffles of boots on the floor Kenric tried to unhear the animal snarls and the tromp of feet, amplified, behind them. Panic would not serve now, only discipline and endurance, a sustained pace that would grow more punishing the longer and farther they went.

Discipline, longevity, endurance, suffering. Punishment. All qualities that embodied the Legion. All qualities with which Kenric was intimately familiar. If it was going to be a war of attrition, Kenric was ready for it.

And wars of attrition, Kenric knew, were a dwarven specialty.

He turned right at the archway, his eyes adjusting to the blue of the magical fire. It was soothing compared to the sick glare of the red lyrium, and Kenric let that thought fill his mind, keep him focused on the ease of his stride, the regularity of his jog. Tactics, it came down to simple tactics, the calculus of death, of the limits of living bodies. The pace to breath ratio, the draining weight of armor, the knowledge that yes, he and Rith and Gwydd could quickstep for hours, if they needed. They had done this hundreds of times, traversed the length and breadth of the Deep Roads at this speed, maintained it without much rest or sustenance. This wasn’t much different, he reasoned, darkspawn or not. _Keep the body over the feet. Relax and resist the urge to push forward._

_Check Rith, observe breathing - form looks good. Gwydd on my heels. Heart rate slowing - level ground from here - way is clear. Taka and Carver with us. Should be easier on them to adapt to our speed. Carver looks winded, though. Big man like that carries heavy. Falla - Ancestors, her body -_

Damn it all, her body. Kenric hoped the darkspawn would leave her, would ignore her lying in state on the lonely brazier plinth with their hearts piled all around. If they found her and set their hands on her - if they so much as opened their mouths to a daughter of the Stone - Kenric would go back himself and slaughter all fifty, his own hide be cursed. 

His sword hissed as it cleared its sheath, and for a second white afterimages trailed behind its flaming length, the light clashing with the jerky sway of the glow lanterns. Kenric almost tripped at the sudden suffusion of brightness, righted himself with a stumble. "Bastards," he muttered, casting a look behind him. In the blue-tinged dark he saw a mass of glinting, humped shapes, more distant than before. Were they slowing? 

"Still there!" Carver huffed. "Haven't miraculously - " and the warden drew a sharp, deep breath, "- disappeared."

“Don’t talk,” Kenric told him. “Hope Warden stamina is real.”

Taka grimaced in response, a hand flitting to his side before curling into a fist. Ahead of them was the gangue-hole, an irregular patch of inky blackness in the thaig wall. _Have we come this far already? Is our pace off? But not too much farther then, just a bit - I hope -_

"Rith!" Kenric barked. "Remember the way?"

"Yes, ser!" 

"Watch him get us lost!" laughed Gwydd. "Gonna be dinner and breakfast!"

"Fuck off!" Rith gasped. "Just fuck off!"

"Seriously?!" Taka wheezed, his steps flagging for a moment. "Now?"

"Shut up and run!" Kenric growled, sheathing his sword. _For fuck's sake, there are darkspawn less than sixty heartbeats from us and you're going to get into each other, if we didn't have miles ahead of us I'd knock your heads together, I swear by the Stone if we live through this - miles, Astyth's fucking stitches, miles, we can run for miles but can the wardens? Carver isn't going to last, and neither is Taka, but I'm not losing any more down here, I'm not. Steady, steady, keep them together - there's the archway, and beyond that the stores - that's right, first the dining hall -_

Gwydd laughed again, the sound of it menacing. "Come on, Carver!" he urged the human, and he didn't seem at all short of breath, didn't act at all like they were fleeing the headsman’s axe fifty times over. "Gonna let a dwarf beat you at this?"

Carver didn't respond, and Kenric couldn’t blame him. Instead he told Rith to take point, then dropped back to where Carver and Taka were. He sent Gwydd on with a push between his shoulderblades. 

Kenric tried to sound encouraging. "Let's go, lads, exit's not far!"

 _Not far but still too far, and then the tunnel that we walked for hours_ \- Kenric almost cussed aloud. It wouldn't do to deflate whatever was left of their spirits at this time. He checked behind them as they continued to run, hearing Carver's breath becoming more and more labored by the second. Darkspawn, still; hope sprang eternal. But a sizable gap.

Rith turned sharply ahead, followed by Gwydd. Relief, when the tunnel came into view. The circumference of light from Rith’s lantern narrowed for half a heartbeat, squeezed into the tunnel alongside Rith, then began climbing steadily up the walls.

"Fuck!" Taka swore. "Uphill!"

If Carver said anything, Kenric couldn’t hear it. Carver's face, splotchy and sweaty, set into determined lines, framing a frightening scowl. "I'm going to live," he ground out when he hit the incline. “Maker help me, I’m not dying like…” Whatever he was going to say was lost to his next draw of air.

 _Right, dig in, it’s not so bad_ \- yes it was, Kenric’s legs were on fucking _fire - Stone take me, we have how much more of this? Is this where we return? Is this -_

“My prince,” Gwydd said, and it was so absurd that Kenric ignored it, kept going on, bulling forward with his head down. “Captain. Kenric! Rith!”

“Cooked already?” Rith said snarkily despite the exhaustion apparent in his face, in his every shuffling step.

“Naw,” Gwydd replied, and stopped. "This is it for me."

“Don’t fuck around, Gwydd,” Kenric snapped, coming to a halt. “Your timing is the worst.”

“I think it’s pretty good actually,” the warrior said, grinning, swinging his axe down from his shoulder, bracing the head of it on the ground. “I can buy you a few minutes, but you gotta keep going instead of standing around stupid like you are right now.”

The horror was sour on his tongue. Kenric felt sick, his soul draining through his chest. "No," Kenric said. "Don't waste our time on this, Gwydd."

Without a word Gwydd yanked off his left vambrace and pushed up the sleeve of his arming doublet. Kenric gasped loudly, heard it repeated in triplicate.

There, growing out of Gwydd's skin, was a cluster of red lyrium crystals, glowing dully with malevolence.

"How...?" Rith croaked, his blue eyes empty with shock. _"How....?"_

Taka and Carver, stupefied, could only look on, mouths agape.

Gwydd shrugged, then grinned again, his eyes gleaming ruby over the rictus of his mouth. He rolled his sleeve back down. “Probably the gangue shade, then the broodmother. I don't know. Rith, give me your pack. I can get you a minute or two, if you'll fuckin' shut up."

Rith stood frozen but for the tears dripping off the point of his chin, so Kenric did it for him, pulling the strap of Falla's pack up and over Rith's head, handing it over to Gwydd. The larger dwarf peered inside, pursed his lips. "Got some quiet death and one last grenade. Good." A pause. "Bet the quiet death tastes like shit."

Through his tears Rith said, "You aren't supposed to drink it, you nughumper."

"Yeah, well, when they eat me they'll choke on my ass, and I'll have the last laugh. Best run, now." Gwydd took up a wide-legged stance, swinging the head of his axe up, letting the shaft return to its place on his shoulder. He cradled the perfect glass sphere of their last incendiary in his hand, a chuckle vibrating in his throat when the first of the darkspawn appeared. "Here they come."

No time to process, no fucking time, and Kenric refused to let his heart break further. Ancestors knew, the entirety of it was already at Falla's feet. There was no saving Gwydd, not with the lyrium in him - madness, Taka had said, magic and madness, corruption unchecked. Kenric began walking backwards, the traditional words of farewell tumbling past his lips, past the salted drops of water on his cheeks, the liquid so precious. 

"Gwydd Saelac!” Kenric shouted as Taka darted forth, two glass beakers in his hands. He shoved them into Falla’s pack, gave Gwydd a resounding thump on his back. “I return you to the Stone in the eyes of the first paragon! Rest well, brother! How long have you fought?"

Gwydd’s laughter boomed out, surrounded them, clothed them merrily. It was a certainty he would greet his death with a smile. "Fuck me! I don't know!"

"Well get your ass to the Stone and tell the first paragon you aren't going anywhere until we're all together again!"

"Aye, captain!"

" _Atrast tunsha_ , and fuck the darkspawn!" Kenric hollered. If he yelled loudly enough, it would keep off the sadness. He pivoted, resuming the quick march, unsure whether the stinging in his eyes hurt more than that of his legs. Rith was ahead, running blindly, his hands flinging shining drops away from his face.

" _Amgarrak_ , and fucking _fuck_ the darkspawn!" roared Gwydd. The breaking of glass followed by the rush of flame and squeals of pain swallowed up whatever else he might have said. 

_Oh,_ prayed Kenric, short of breath, feet and ankles leaden, his whole body. He didn’t think he could hurt any more; by the Stone, it was too much. _Ancestors, may Gwydd come to you as loving and obnoxious as he came to us._

_Falla, watch over him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated.
> 
> My babies. :(


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to my friends, especially Dee and SecondSeal, who had to endure all the arghing I've done over this chapter. My everlasting gratitude to Icon and my husband for the beta.

And then there were four.

Four of them fleeing Gwydd’s last stand, the sounds of smashing glass chasing them. Four of them leaving the dwarf to face his duty and his choice, leaving him to die against the darkspawn before the red lyrium could claim him.

Taka had not thought about what it might be like to live in the wake of such heroism, but as he ran he wished he’d never learned. For it was not heroism but butchery framed in grim, terrible sacrifice, and no matter how many times Gwydd’s laughter came to his ears it was always cut short with a grunt of pain. Taka counted the noises until he lost track and could not bear to count anymore, his tallying of Gwydd’s mortal wounds the only way he knew of recording the warrior’s last moments, the only way he knew of paying him the respect he deserved.

They pressed on despite everything, renewed not with the brief moment of rest but with the determination that Gwydd’s death would mean their continued survival. Carver, at his side, bore a deep scowl, and his eyes were liquid, shining bright with every pendulum swing of the glow lantern he carried. Their brief stop had been enough to regain some semblance of energy; the taint in them had done its work, and the two of them jogged on gamely, their footsteps lighter now on the steep grade of the dirt floor. 

Ahead of him were Kenric and Rith, and it broke something in Taka to see Kenric running with his right hand clamped white-knuckled on the other dwarf’s unarmored shoulder, to see Rith flinch visibly with every cry that reached them. The first great oath that shook the air had Rith whipping himself around, Gwydd's whimpered name a weak shiver that sent goosebumps racing down Taka's neck and shoulders. Kenric had sworn unintelligibly and fisted his hand in the back of Rith's tunic, and with an astounding reserve of strength, dragged the smaller dwarf bodily for several paces.

"Don't be stupid!" Kenric had snarled, and to that Rith had no response but a soft gasp. Still, he regained his feet, trotting broken-spirited beside Kenric, who simply changed his grip, not trusting his teammate.

Taka did not need any explanation to know it was only Kenric who kept Rith in the world of the living, who kept him from drawing his knives and turning back to find his own inevitability.

Realistically, Taka reasoned, Gwydd could take out at least five, perhaps seven or eight. In the tight quarters, however, he would be able to kill more, especially with the aid of the extra fire grenades. In the brief glimpses he had caught of their pursuers, Taka had seen shrieks in the fore, leading the charge. Easy enough to slay those, with Gwydd’s strength and skill. Easy enough to hold firm in the chokepoint he had chosen, and purchase with blood and laughter a few more moments. Perhaps more than a few, if he could draw on the red lyrium in him.

 _Stop thinking,_ Taka told himself, though he was acutely aware of the reason behind his calculations. Whatever happened, they had to keep going, ignoring the acidic burn of fatigue and grief and carrying on as far as their bodies could take them. Kenric had a plan, Taka figured; if not, then he and Carver’s Calling would arrive prematurely. Disappointing, really. Taka had hoped to have more fun before descending into darkness and insanity, followed by death and dismemberment, preferably in that order.

Suddenly, improbably, a flash of bright crimson light flooded up the walls of the tunnel. A second later a shockwave slammed into their backs, knocking them all into the ground face first. Taka hadn’t the time nor energy to break his fall and landed hard on his stomach, the impact driving the air from him. For one heart-stopping, panicked moment, stars danced in front of his eyes, and his shocked diaphragm’s overpowering, instinctive pull for air made him feel as if were imploding. He wrestled for lost breath, his hands scrabbling in the dirt.

Gwydd’s baritone laugh, booming and magnified, struck them a physical blow as it blew past them. His voice, too, was unnaturally loud in their ears. “Fuckers!” Gwydd yelled, and there was nothing more.

The silence weighed upon them heavy, kept them still as the grave. For a moment, no one breathed.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Kenric said finally, pushing himself to his feet, the movements laborious. “That was his last word?”

Taka stared.

Rith laid on the floor, half-laughing, half-crying. “Are you surprised?”

“Not in the slightest.” Kenric bent forward and offered Rith a hand. “You still wanna go back there?”

Rith clasped Kenric’s hand and staggered to his feet. “Aye, captain.”

“You gonna do it?”

“No, captain.”

"Good. Because no one's gonna shield you from my fist this time if you do."

Taka got his legs under him, grimacing at the bite of tired muscles, and stood. There was nothing but darkness when he looked behind them. Whatever strange, lyrium-fueled magic Gwydd had performed, it had been effective. It was probably too much to hope that Gwydd had taken out all fifty darkspawn; the blast had been quite powerful, eerily reminiscent of the broodmother’s own attack. Taka shivered despite the heat. He could hardly believe that a dwarf had magic. If he weren’t so tired, he’d be alarmed.

“We need to keep going,” Carver said, levering himself upright with the point of his sword. He was breathing rapidly, pausing for a second to drink a mouthful of water from the skin hanging off his rucksack. “If any remain, we are losing time to them.”

“That’s not an if,” Taka said slowly, squinting down the length of the tunnel. A torch had been kindled to life behind them, the flame a small, flickering golden star. “That’s a definite.”

"Lights!" Rith said, his abruptness jarring.

“Yes, we just established that, thank you,” said Taka wearily, turning to face Rith.

"Lights," Kenric affirmed, his pace increasing. "Glow lanterns. Legionnaires!" Kenric’s voice shook.

“Thank the Maker!” Carver gasped. “One last push, come on!”

Taka narrowed his eyes, sent his gaze over Rith’s shoulder. In the distance ahead he saw soft white lights swinging in crescents. Taka blinked, pressed his lips into a line, and shook his head in an attempt to clear it of his exhaustion. _How far…?_

“Can we make it?”

“Yes.” Kenric’s face, harshly lined, was set with determination. “Yes.”

Taka fixed his eyes on the lights ahead of him, gritted his teeth when the floor of the tunnel sloped higher, the grade increasing. Maker, how unfair to add insult to injury when he could barely put one foot in front of the other. 

A small, round outcropping of rock partway up the side of the tunnel caught his attention. _There_ , he thought. If he could reach it, he was in good shape. Farther ahead there was a break in the wall. Excellent, he could go towards that, could manage the number of steps he took per breath, whittle down in strides the distance between them and the legionnaires. Small goals, he thought, manageable ones, simple as that. Then they would be out of the tunnel and, Maker willing, back on the Deep Roads.

But as they struggled up the steeper grade their pace dropped nearly to a walk. They were losing time, and they all knew it. Exhaustion, mental and physical, threatened to engulf them, and for half a moment Taka thought it might have just been easier to stand and fight instead of continue running.

Ridiculous. All Taka had to do was watch Kenric and Rith. Taka didn't know how Kenric and Rith kept ahead of them; willpower or stubbornness, an equal measure of both, a desire to make their squadmate's sacrifice count, all of the above. Whatever it was, they kept their death-grip on life and did not falter, not even when the faint tromp of boots became audible. 

Taka risked a glance behind him. Panic was a jolt of lightning down his spine; surprise and fear made the breath catch in his throat. The darkspawn were within striking distance, the silvery gleam of dozens of eyes clearly visible. “Shit!”

Kenric didn’t look at him as he replied, focused as he was. “What?” 

“Go, go - “ Taka coughed, clawed down a breath. “They’re upon us - go!” He had not thought the darkspawn would close the gap so swiftly, much less catch them. Taka willed himself into one last sprint, adrenaline a wave of pricking needles over his flesh, but his legs would not go faster.

Empty. There was nothing left except...

The lights ahead grew brighter, and Taka could make out faces. On the outside edges of his thoughts, Taka envisioned the darkspawn closing in, their putrid breath on his neck. Maker, it was not supposed to go like this, being chased down by the darkspawn before his Calling, fleeing like animals before a hunting party. It was not…

The taint crooned in his ears and, drawing upon it, Taka felt a rush of strength.

He looked at Carver, and they nodded to each other. Long strides took them abreast of the dwarves. Reaching out, they each laid a hand on Kenric and Rith’s back, gave them the reassurance of their support. “Come on, captain!” Taka gasped, propelling Kenric along. A hundred paces, it could not be much more than that, and they would reach the legionnaires. Less than a hundred paces. Taka dared not look back.

To their credit, the legionnaires were well trained. At fifty paces, they took up defensive stances in the tunnel. At forty, one of them withdrew a familiar-looking sphere from a nondescript canvas bag. At thirty, weapons came free. And at twenty, recognition flashed over their faces.

“Kenric?!”

“Aye!”

“Major’s outside! We’ve got you covered.” Ten paces, and Taka felt the blast of heat on the back of his neck. The legionnaires closed ranks behind them and began an organized retreat. Taka prayed that whatever concoctions they were flinging at the darkspawn would damage them, help extend the time difference. They were not yet out of danger despite the help, and Taka had no way of knowing how much further they had yet to go.

Everything narrowed then, drew down to the breaths scraping his chest raw, the background hum of the taint, the pillars of flame that were his legs. Survival was their only option, he thought. After Falla and Gwydd, and now the reinforcements, it was impossible that they wouldn’t survive. _A bit farther. Just another ten seconds, and another ten after that._ And another ten, his muscles aching in that telltale way that heralded cramping. Another ten, his vision blackening at the edges.

The mouth of the tunnel loomed into view, and past it, Taka saw the grim forms of the Legion of the Dead.

They swept out of the tunnel, carried on a breaking wave of relief. Taka could barely run, overwhelmed as he was, and lurched ungainly onto the solid masonry of the Deep Roads. Immediately, two squads of legionnaires formed up into a gauntlet in front of the entrance. The last group, the one sent to scout for them, took up positions outside the lines, their weapons raised. The darkspawn, confused at the change in circumstance, ran right into the jaws of the trap, and did not survive. It was slaughter, pure and simple.

_Thank the Maker it is over._

Taka collapsed onto the hard stone of the Deep Roads, pulled himself forward until his head cleared the edge, and vomited the meager contents of his stomach into the lava. He retched until there was nothing left, then retched again, his body convulsing. Not too far from him was Carver on hands and knees, head down, humpbacked with the force of his breaths, his sword a diagonal slash on the stone. 

Taka rolled over onto his back, fingers searching for the waterskin attached to his rucksack, fingers crawling over gritty, cool stone and rough, weathered canvas. Water, he needed water before his entire body seized up, before his thirst could consume him. Seconds stretched as he felt about; he didn’t even flinch at the deafening explosions of grenades, couldn’t and didn’t react to the tremors in the ground, the dirt and smoke that washed over his face. Water. Before the cramps could take him. 

The smooth cap of the waterskin, the soft feel of leather. Taka lifted a hand, his arm shaking, and pulled his canteen from his pack. Maker, he still had to get up. With a groan he rolled to his side and pushed himself up, trembling. The water was lukewarm, but it was the sweetest thing he had ever drunk, even carrying the nauseating tang of bile. Sip by sip he emptied his water skin, watched as Carver, Rith, and Kenric did the same to theirs.

Then he laid back and let himself drift, the sounds of battle misty and distant.

Footsteps, booted; the telltale clack of armor. “Captain,” a gruff voice said. Taka opened his eyes, turned his head slightly to look at Kenric. Above him stood a heavily tattooed dwarf, bald, thickly moustached. “Kenric.”

“Major.” Kenric grunted. “Kardol.”

“Stone-met, you blighter. Darkspawn are all dead.”

“Good.” Taka didn’t begrudge Kenric’s desire to answer in single syllables.

Kardol sank onto his haunches and stuck out his hand. “I have many questions, but they’ll have to wait.” He surveyed the remains of Kenric’s squad, and Taka saw pity bloom over his craggy features. “Let’s get you and your boys back to base camp.” Kardol nodded to the other legionnaires, then jerked his head in Rith’s direction. “Looks like you took heavy losses.”

“Heavy losses,” Kenric repeated, his shoulders sloping downwards, his words cavernous, hollow. “Yes. Heavy losses.”

Taka pretended not to notice the welling of tears before Kenric dashed them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always appreciated. This particular chapter has been the most difficult, trying piece of writing I've undertaken in a very long time, and I think it shows. My apologies. Onward and upward.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dearest readers,
> 
> Thank you all for being kind and patient as this story spun itself out. I had thought no one would particularly care about the Legion, so imagine my surprise at the comments and hits! Thank you so, so much for being here. I would not have been able to do this without you.
> 
> I have as always a bunch of people to thank for their support during the process. First, my core readers and cheerleaders, especially imperfectkreis, themightyzan, missfronkensteen, drenntrev, thievinghippo, Dee, ladyjeanclaude, oh-kasheay, empress-emesh, digital-goddess, and siawrites. Extra thanks go out to dgcakes for the amazing, amazing art - my heart is so full when I see my dwarf squad! - and thesecondsealwrites, whose original prompt took this story from a nebulous idea to a solid 30k fic.
> 
> And last but definitely not least my betas: my husband, who is incredibly tolerant of my process, and my dearest Notaricon, whose friendship and input I cherish deeply, and without whom I could not have done this.
> 
> Thank you, everyone, again.

Kenric had been sitting at his desk for entirely too long. He rolled his shoulders, small aches lancing through his muscles, braced his hands against the edge of the worn wood, and stretched out his shoulderblades. Small pops announced the cracking of his knuckles, followed by louder ones when he twisted to each side, working the stiffness from his spine.

Kenric sighed, dipping his quill into the inkwell, blotting the tip of it on a spare sheet of paper. Paperwork, endless paperwork, paperwork he didn’t even know he was supposed to do, paperwork that bred paperwork. It was an hours-long daily chore, and today was much the same. Kenric suspected that the higher-ups were finding excuses to give him more of the dreaded stuff in an attempt to give him a break.

He snorted and scrawled his signature across the bottom of a document. A break. He couldn’t fault them. He had needed one. They all had needed one. But instinct and experience told him that it was possible to take entirely too long of a break, and they were growing closer to that point with each passing turn of the sand-glass. He and Rith had taken the time and stillness to meet their grief, had spent hours sleeping, sitting and doing nothing, reminiscing, crying. Kenric had learned anew how to live with survival.

Now, it was time to move on. Kenric would forever carry the hurt and emptiness inside him, would partition off that part of his heart that had been Falla and Gwydd's and inter it until it was time to bury the rest. Whenever his second death came, he looked forward to reuniting with his team. Until then he had a job to do, and that meant getting back out into the Deep Roads. Though he supposed getting back out necessitated adding two new members to his squad, and he wasn't sure if he and Rith were ready for that just yet. If only he could add Carver and Taka permanently to the team instead of taking on whoever was assigned to him. Kenric would ask if it weren't so futile, but the humans were not meant to spend the rest of their lives underground. _The sun_ , he'd overheard Taka saying. _I miss it._

Thinking of the wardens reminded him that they were leaving today.

Kenric set aside the paper and pulled the next document out. He sighed once more upon seeing it, and debated whether or not to put it back at the bottom of the pile. There were reports and then there were _reports_ , and this one belonged to the latter category. He had already avoided it for too long; the mostly-blank form had traversed the pile from bottom to top at least four times. _Next time_ , he had told himself. _Next time._

When next time came, he'd stared at the bleak whiteness of the page, bereft of words, then hid it beneath the pile.

This time he would have to do it. This time he'd have to recount in full, agonizing detail what had happened. He would have to confront the decisions made and the consequences borne, explain the red lyrium and awakened darkspawn, theorize on the unbelievable fact that Gwydd had used magic, and his sword - Ancestors, Kenric would have to own up to having an ancient, magical flaming sword.

Kenric re-inked the quill even though it didn’t need re-inking, blotted it again, and was half an inch from setting it to paper when a knock sounded at the door.

“Kenric?”

Rith. “Come in.” He set his quill down carefully.

The handle turned and the door swung open. Rith stood in the frame, face downcast, clad in a mix of leather and plate, his familiar brace of knives at his hips.

Kenric raised an eyebrow; he himself was in a simple sleeved jerkin and breeches. “You’re rather overdressed. Are there orders I don’t know about?”

Rith shook his head. “No. That’s why I came to talk.”

Kenric gestured to the lone unoccupied chair in his office. “Have a seat, then.” He waited as Rith sat, his armor rustling as he did. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know how else to say this, but…” Rith looked down briefly before meeting Kenric’s eyes, his gaze firm. “...I’m leaving.”

Kenric blinked, taken aback. “No one leaves the Legion, Rith.”

Quiet determination: that had always been the hallmark of Rith’s personality. It had been a good, steadying influence when matched with Falla and Gwydd’s impulsiveness and mercurial shifts of emotion. By itself, however - Kenric could feel it in the air, could sense it turning into stubbornness. 

“I’m leaving the Legion, Kenric. I’ve asked the wardens to conscript me.”

Pain, sudden; a searing flash, tears needling his eyes, pricking betrayal into his chest. “That’s a death sentence, lad.”

“And this isn’t?” Rith’s expression was one of anguish. “How is it different? I’ll just know when the time comes, instead of waiting for it.”

“Your second death should be with the Legion.” Kenric scowled fiercely.

“No,” Rith said sharply, bitter. “My second death started with Falla and ended with Gwydd. I don’t want a third death if you go before I do. So what does it matter? I can’t…” He swallowed, glancing away. “I can’t go back out there right now, Kenric.”

Ancestors help him, he understood, and it did nothing to lessen his feelings. “We haven’t yet received our orders. We may not deploy for some time.”

Rith shrugged. “I’m not waiting around to get them. I can’t go back out there, and I don’t want to face it until my time has come.”

“You could - “ Kenric took a deep breath, and was glad he’d already put his quill down, else he’d have ink all over his hand. “The Joining. You might not survive it. Then what? You’ll be Stone-lost, rejected, and we won’t have any hope of seeing you again. How could you think of going to the surface?”

“It’s better than being a useless legionnaire.” Rith’s hands balled into fists. “I can’t. Go out there. I can’t stop thinking about what happened. I see Falla’s face every time I close my eyes. I hear Gwydd in the silence when I can’t sleep. It’s not going to get better if I go back out and hit things until I can’t feel anymore. It’s not going to get better if I stay. I've thought about this a lot, Kenric. And as much as I would follow you...” Rith frowned. Kenric could see the flush of his emotions beneath his freckles. "I can't."

“The Joining,” Kenric said again, vehemently.

“I’ll survive it,” Rith said simply. “I’ll survive, and if I die fighting darkspawn, the wardens can find someone to return me.”

Kenric’s tone was clipped, more brusque than he had intended. “How do you expect someone to return you when you won't even be able to find her?”

In response, Rith reached into his belt pouch and withdrew something rocky and round. He stood and approached Kenric’s desk, and laid the object down.

“Her geode.” The words were soft, reverent. “The purest lyrium Falla had ever seen. The Stone sings in this, Kenric, can't you tell? _Falla_ sings in this, that blasted humming. She must have put her memories into it. Ancestors, when I hold it up to my ear…” Rith closed his eyes briefly. “I can hear her. And I can feel the Stone. As long as I have this, I think I’ll be all right.”

Kenric said nothing for a while, defeated. This was it, he thought in resignation. He couldn't blame Rith for his actions. This was their family now, scattered to the four corners of the earth, irretrievable in life.

“Make sure the Shapers know what happened.” Kenric’s voice was hoarse with emotion. The stinging in his eyes did not abate. “You’re Legion of the Dead. Dead caste. They will allow you in. They need to know about the darkspawn and what they were doing.”

Rith swallowed loudly. “They will have our names and our actions. I’ll make sure of it. At knifepoint, if I have to.”

Kenric nodded. “Good.” He stood and came around his desk, held out an arm. Rith clasped it, and Kenric pulled him into a brief, rough hug, did his best to keep his composure. “Don’t lose your mind up there, Rith.”

“Official orders, my prince?” Rith was slow to release him.

“Damn straight they are, lad. No falling into the sky, am I understood?”

“Ser.” The corner of Rith’s mouth quirked up. “I won’t, Kenric.”

Kenric let go and stepped back. “Are the wardens waiting, then? You’re leaving immediately?”

Rith nodded once, picking up the geode, stowing it back in his belt pouch. “They’re by the main gates.”

“Let’s go, then.” There was no sense in drawing things out.

Taka and Carver were waiting close by the giant stone doors, dressed in full warden regalia. They each raised a hand in greeting when they saw him. “Captain,” Taka said once they drew near, bowing deeply. 

“Warden,” Kenric replied, turning to Carver, who also bowed. “You sure you don’t want to be legionnaires? You boys didn’t do too badly.”

“I take it Rith told you,” said Carver.

“He did.”

“And you’re all right with this…?”

Astyth's stitches, of course he wasn't. Kenric’s lips drew into a line. “Do you honestly think I could have convinced him otherwise?”

Taka shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not really, no.”

Rith laid a hand on Kenric's shoulder, then moved forward to stand with the wardens. “I’ll be back, captain.”

“You had better be. I'll hold you to that promise. Watch your left side.” Kenric gulped down the lump in his throat, noted that none of them were particularly clear-eyed. “Taka and Carver, take care of him, will you? And you take care of them, Rith.”

“Aye, captain.”

Kenric saluted smartly. “It’s been an honor, lads.”

“And lass.” Taka gave a small smile, and Kenric had to bite his tongue to stifle his gasp. “We have never been so humbled, captain. Thank you. We’ll see each other again.”

Carver signaled to the gatekeeper, and a smaller door set into the massive gate opened outward. With a wave and a sad smile, Rith shouldered his pack and fell into step with the wardens. Kenric watched as long as he could, but the gatekeeper was pitiless, letting the door shut before Rith's form could fully disappear into Orzammar's vastness.

Kenric stood and watched anyway, his eyes boring into the stone, his jaw clenching until his face hurt.

He made his way back to his office alone.

Once inside Kenric closed the door and sat down behind his desk, resuming his position. He picked up the quill, shook it out, inked it again. The empty page was still on the deskpad, still staring up at him. 

After a moment Kenric began writing, the tip of the quill stroking boldly over the paper.

_The dead didn’t laugh._

_That was wrong, of course. The dead laughed plenty._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Fin._
> 
> For further adventures of Taka and Carver (with a guest appearance from Rith!) please see _[Paralysis.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11643915/chapters/26192058)_


End file.
